Marvin Heiferman's Photography Changes Everything Essay write up: What does Photography mean to me?

Marvin Heiferman's Photography Changes Everything Essay write up:

    Heiferman talks about Photography, not just as an art, but as a tool in his essay. He explains that Photography is used by just about anyone for various different reasons, whether it is in their line of work, capturing a memory, or expressing an emotion through art, the same medium is used drastically for so many different purposes. I feel like the question "What does Photography mean?" is almost impossible to answer on a global scale because of the fact that it has completely different meanings and values across every form of usage. I think a more appropriate question is "What does photography mean to you?" to the individual. I can't really write about what it means to you though because you are someone else who most likely thinks about it much differently than I do. So... what does photography mean to me?

    I think it's extremely hard to give photography one singular meaning, even from my own perspective. I will say however, photography in just about every application is an attempt to display and/or invoke an emotion or a feeling. That feeling may just be the realization that what you are looking at is beautiful, or astounding. And I think that's what's so beautiful about Photography. It doesn't need to have some profound meaning to be beautiful, or worthwhile. It can be just a nice image of a sunset, or a cool photo you took of someone's dog. I suppose I should give a few examples of photos that I believe bring to mind certain emotions.

    Now admittedly, I don't think there's a problem with my belief of photography as a way of expressing emotions, but Heiferman considers photography to be so broad and merely impossible to pin down with a single description/definition, even I myself question my statement from before. Photography clearly has so many more uses than just being a form of art. I think Heiferman's title perfectly sums up photography though. That it changes everything. What we see, what we want, the kind of people we are, what we do, where we go, and what we remember. Photography effects all of those things, but in some cases it may have a negative impact on our mental health. The rise of social media has been a huge part of this downwards spiral. Photography has been used as a tool of superiority against others. Nowadays, it seems like people do things for the photo, rather than taking the photo to remember the moment. I guess my point is, people have become clout chasers ever since social media really took off. People strive to be different, they do things simply for popularity. In some cases they don't even enjoy what they do, but are simply in it to get noticed. I think that is one of photography's major negatives in this modern era, is the effect it has on people's mental health, and its use to depict fake lives, where only the good parts are shown. It makes the little things in life seem unimportant to people. It seems that social media users are so enveloped in protecting and building their self image, they forget what really matters in life, and that to me is a true tragedy. Yes, photography can change lives, but nowadays it seems to mainly be for the worse.