One of my interviewees, and a good friend of Mr. Tragos', has an excellent blog aimed at increasing visual literacy: nocaptionneeded.com. Please check it out, it's a great site that was founded after the publication of his book by the same title.
We already know that, for the most part, humans accept and retain knowledge best when presented visually. To interpret photographs critically is certainly much harder, but is also necessary. Thousands of photographs flood AP Images everyday, and we see many of them on TV or online, but it would take so much longer to analyze them that we often neglect them for quick headlines.
Take Nick Ut's iconic image, for example. I could write an essay three times the length of my JT just on this grainy image. But for a quick "see-think-wonder," consider this: Ut was criticized for taking a photograph of a naked girl whose village was napalmed. But he helped the girl to a hospital, aiding the American soldier also pictured. This photo taken out of context could be so many things: An argument for the innocence of children to be censored from the mainstream media, arguments against pure pain, a suggestion that American soldiers really weren't doing anything in Vietnam (they look like they're ignoring the children).
If we were to really analyze the photographs that we see on the news, it would consume a lot of our time. But perhaps we might become more aware of what we saw and the bias of the photographer.
The thing that I think stops people from analyzing photos and looking at them critically is captions, like you mentioned. When you're reading a newspaper or a magazine, they always give you caption, so they basically tell you how they want you to analyze the picture. But they may have taken that picture way out of context and used it for their purpose only. I think pictures can be very powerful things, like what Mr. Tragos was saying in his talk. But it is very important to always look at them critically and look at every aspect of the picture, which most people don't. Like the picture above. A lot of people didn't notice the American soldiers in the back, but they do have a pretty big presence in the photo. And you can learn a lot about a situation just by looking at a picture.
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