Imagine a world with no photographs, what this world would be like?

  A world with no photographs would be completely different from what it is today.  Photography has played a great role in the history of art in the movement toward modern ideas of composition and balance.

  Aside from the artistic point of view, photographs serve as memory devices that allow people to look back and remember/reminisce upon a moment of their past that is captured in an image.  Not only do they allow people to reminisce of the past, but it also provides people with a third person point of view of their own lives.  Without photographs, one would only have temporary things such as mirrors to view themselves, which would only allow them to witness each second as it passed.  Photographs on the other hand, freeze a moment in time so that it may be revisited repeatedly.

 Another aspect of photographs as a memory device is that they provide a confirmed recollection of the past. Since memory is, in fact, incredibly malleable, it is easy to remember things incorrectly.  Thus, without photographs, people would be less capable of remembering things as they were.  The mind could easily twist and change things without the use of photographs. Without photographs, who knows, your favorite red sweater could be remembered as your favorite blue sweater. That would be tragic.

-Sarah H