Abu Ghraib photos:

The photos we observed in class seemed like incomplete literature to me. Looking at one photo, I would describe it like this:

There was a dressed blue and black corse, most likely male, lying on a cot. There is a white woman dressed in military uniform who looks like she may be American. She is leaning towards the body and facing camera with a thumb up and a smile. She looks like she is taking pride in getting her picture taken with the corpse, who may an enemy to her.

But I had no idea about anymore of the picture. If the picture was titled with "Ice Man" I would add to my description that the corpse is the Ice Man. If I knew the background story of Abu Ghraib, I would say, "the woman is American and the Ice Man is a tortured prisoner from the Middle East. He was frozen after being tortured to death." And there could be more to say about the Ice Man and what the military did and the morals of the military. Then, the picture could be worth a thousand words, so they say. But just having the photo without any other description or knowledge can hardly produce 100 words and it leaves the observer in the dark.

People can know what is happening in some pictures but I think that is because they already have seen something similar read a description before that matches a photo or they can relate to the photo. A picture I see often is easy for me to give most or all of the story:

A kid is standing on a chair or something tall in front of a counter. He is reaching for a jar on the counter. He probably would get in trouble if he were caught.

I see this and I think the kid is getting a cookie because I know cookie jars are kept on the counter and I have seen pictures like this before. I also know that if the kid was allowed to have a cookie, the mom or dad would be handing it to the kid instead of the kid standing on something.

Website: It's long but describes the investigation and some of the photos we looked at in class. Also, it says that these photos give more description to people but the photos do not tell everything about the military involvement or reasons for doing what they did.
http://www.salon.com/2006/03/14/introduction_2/