“All these photographs according to Sontag left chasm that could never be fill that stay in their memories of the people eternally.” You are not making sense in this sentence: maybe you can say something along the lines of: “According to Sontag, all these photographs left chasms that could never be filled and stays as a memory in the peoples’ mind eternally.” Change your word around and you’ll be find…make sure you go over it and read it outloud so you know if there’s a word that doesn’t belong there or if you spelled something wrong. OKay?

The slavery of African Americans, on the other hand, took place before photography was available, and slavery continued for a very long time. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t horrific – it was – but it wasn’t the sudden, dramatic event that the previously mentioned ones were.

Photography doesn’t show injustice. Photography shows scenes, people, places, incidents. Nor can photography show effort.

There is a problem with Sontag’s whole theory, however, in that there is no recognition of the fact that photographs can be edited, photographs can be selected, and photographs can be made to say anything you want.

Just for an example, let’s pick a happier occasion – a birthday party. Show a picture of the birthday girl blowing out candles on a cake, and everyone smiles. Then show a picture of a little girl whose balloon has burst, and she is in tears. If you showed one picture, it would seem a happy event. If you showed the other, it would seem a sad event. This is not to suggest that pictures of the Holocaust, Nagasaki or 9/11 were edited to show the horrendous events they portrayed, but just to point out that there are frequently more sides to a story than what a selected image shows and Sontag’s generalization doesn’t recognize that fact.

There were also acts of heroism in each of the events she mentions and acts of human kindness. But these are not often included in the portrayals of those terrible events.