I had always thought that a picture was proof of something.. That if you couldn't believe what someone was saying, a picture could prove it. It never really crossed my mind that a picture can be biased, because after all, it's a picture, and without manipulation, it's accurate. Right? Well, turns out, that's not quite right. I never really thought of the fact that a photographer can choose exactly what he/she wants to photograph and wants to leave out of a picture in order to prove a point.
One thing that came to mind when people started talking about the bias of the person taking a photograph is my recent vacation to Mexico. Before we left, I was looking at all the pictures of the brochures of tourist destinations, beautiful beaches, the luxurious resorts we were staying at... It made Mexico look amazing. And it's true, the resorts are lovely, the beaches are beautiful, and the tourist destinations are breathtaking. But this does not represent Mexico. Because the reality is that there's another side of Mexico that isn't so pretty. There are people in poverty, the government is corrupt, there is child trafficking, and a huge drug problem. These are all things that are not pictured and cannot be represented through the pictures I was seeing. Does it mean the pictures are lying? No. But they definitely aren't telling the full truth.
So even photographs can be biased, what can we really trust? I think that to truly know the full picture of something, you need to experience it for yourself, and not just go along with what others say or what you see from pictures. After all, life is about experiences.
