In fact, I own several cameras. I've done a good share of making my first 10,000 images, which is expected of photojournalists before they will be signed by the major photo agencies. Forget for the moment that 90 percent of my images are of my four children. I was once a card-carrying member of the National Press Photographers Assn., largely because at the time part of my work was as a photo editor. I know the power of photographs.
Photos can bring a story to vivid life.
We read story after story about Tiananmen Square, but one frame of a lone person standing before a column of tanks captured symbolically the ideal that was championed there. The meaninglessness and horror of the Vietnam War was probably captured best in Eddie Adams' candid shot of a summary execution carried out with a pistol on a street in Vietnam. That shot symbolized all that is wrong with war. His photo has been transformed into a national memorial statue just across the Potomac River from Washington. I dare say, however, that without the foundation of words these symbols lose their powerful context.