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MARCH 2021 Download this Article
Little have we realised that cameras have been transforming the world by creating lasting images, of the actual events. It has been contributing to changes ever since they have coming into being.
The camera has been around for more than 180 years. In that time, it' has captured countless history-defining moments. Those moments were shared with the public as photographs and newsreel in early 20th century.
Today in the 21st century, instant live streaming, infinitely large social media platforms retaining images till the end of time, continue to record important events for those who cannot be there. They are making memories and references to create voices and change the world.
4th June 1913, Emily Wilding Davidson was captured on camera, putting herself in front of King's horse at Epsom Racecourse. It was a contentious moment for the suffragette movement.
The camera captured the desperate attempt by the women of Britain who wanted to vote. By this time, not many countries allowed women to participate in democracy.
This footage was one vital force to bring change across the world. Not many of us know that it was the suffragette movement that paved the way for women right to vote across the globe.
Events like these, unintended to be captured on camera, have significance in our modern history.
Some of the moment captured were defining the spirit of the time. The 1945 picture of a sailor kissing the nurse at Times Square, celebrating the end of world war, is one example.
Over thousands of couples replicated the pose to mark the transition into a peaceful world. Did the picture make a difference? It is now symbolic of returning soldiers from the clutches of death and desire to end the wars.
Who can forget the 1963 "I have a dream" speech by Martin Luther King Jr.? Though it was a planned event, both the speaker and the camera played an equal part in bringing the idea of liberty to the U.S. and the world.
Remove one, and the effectiveness of the sustained effect of those words would get diluted.
There are numerous images and motions that cameras have on the impression the history. Some of them deliberate, and others accidental.
6th August 1965, the cameras were capturing the police brutality at Selma. What was storytelling through the newspaper reporting was closer to reality with the newsreel.
Six months down the line, President Lyndon Johnson was signing the Voting Rights Act into law. It intended to put an end to the racial discrimination of minorities for their voting rights.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the act was deemed the most significant piece of civil rights law ever legislated in the united states.
While not much had changed in America when it comes to the Blacks Lives Matter, even when it was not a formal name, the world was horrified viewing the police brutality falling over Rodney King in 1991.
The footage was a stark reminder of the reality that existed only for the eyes. It was known, but this time it was for the world to see. The footage followed by the ensuing outrage - forced the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) to change radically.
Christopher Commission released its report on the incidence and recommended ways to reduce racism, sexism, and excessive force by the police. But change will not come overnight as we will sadly witness George Floyd's case in the May of 2020.
In 1972, when Nick Ut of the associated press captured the children fleeing the napalm bomb in Vietnam, it added a force to anti-war in the U.S.
It ignited the consciousness of the nation that the Vietnam war is a brutal violation of human rights. Anti-Vietnam war sentiments further gave rise to many a movement for peace as a formal position.
It affected the global outlook towards the war from within the warring nation. Volunteers and activists across the world began to unite. Galaxy of musicians, artists, celebrities in entertainment joined hands against war.
These movements continue under the different aegis. It is the power of those visual that came from the frontline that made the difference to the voice of the affected and future course of war led politics.
On the brink was China in 1989. Students were protesting at Tiananmen Square for democratic rights in the country. The government's brutal response included army tanks rolling into the protest.
The camera's magic captured what the rest of the world would learn, and generations will get inspired. A lone protestor stood defiant in front of the battle tanks, forcing the gunpowder loaded chunk of steel, just powerless.
Those visuals are no less than a bible of defiance against the mighty. Only if the camera were absent, the world today would have been devoid of this icon—Bravo to the unknown protester and the camera person.
As the cameras' underlying technology became more sophisticated, so did its accessibility to the public at large—one significant change in public life's democratisation.
More and more actions of the government, companies, private citizens and public have gotten scrutinised. Many celebrated heads have rolled just because they were on camera, revealing their real motives.
Companies and governments have been held accountable for their actions. The public at large has been under the scanner to behave appropriately.
Slowly and subtle, the camera has become a tool of power-play both in the hands of governed and government.
The May of 2020 saw police brutality at its worst. George Floyd, a black resident of Minneapolis, U.S., was choked to death by a police officer.
A passer-by captured the arrest and death of George. The video showing eight minutes of a gruesome death is a new low of how government forces act on its suspected citizens.
While the outrage culminated into riots across the U.S. and the world, it also restarted the social justice debate based on racial discrimination.
The laws against racial bias will find their place in the law books. But the debate will continue for as long as the statute can translate into practice. What happens on the ground will take time and effort, though.
But already, the event is making waves across the continents and is on the edge of a silent revolution. Those eight minutes are etched in history, and hope for change ignited again.
The magnitude of outrage that the camera added to George Floyd case only emphasises the camera's power. It also reiterates that the camera today has become an integral part of human existence and an individual's personality.
Its an extension of the human body that can transverse the international borders and impact a community more than any legislation or religious text.
It also can focus on the issue to the extent that very few still remember who the camera persons were behind those iconic moments mentioned above.
So, a faceless human behind the lens has become all-powerful if, at the right place and right time, it's just a click and shoot to make a change. Never leave your home without one. You could be the next revolutionary.
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