Something I’ve thought about a lot during this course is what impact photography can have. For example, how does photography change the public opinion on a war or a famine? And more importantly, how can photography cause people to actually take action. I think as photojournalism has evolved over the years, photographers have become less hopeful that photography can change the world in a very impactful way. I think Ron Haviv is one of the perfect examples of this. While photographing the war in Bosnia, he hoped that his images would incite powerful nations to get involved and stop the ethnic cleansing. When that didn’t happen Haviv’s world view changed a lot.

However, I think this is even more interesting when it comes to the famine photography we talked about, because often the  photographs are used to get people to donate. I guess unlike war photography, it relies more on individual action. Therefore, I think its really interesting whether more shocking photos cause less people to donate money or if the more uplifting photos that show hope. I wonder if that is also true of war photography. Maybe more heroic images of the kind we see from World War II or the immediate post war years would cause nations to act more than the images of atrocity we see more often today.