Name: Photos that changed the world
Uploaded: 2010-04-13T09:32:00Z
Duration: 5 min 45 s
Description: Photographs do more than document history -- they make it. At TED University, Jonathan Klein of Getty Images shows some of the most iconic, and talks about what happens when a generation sees an image so powerful it can't look away -- or back.

Photographs do more than document history -- they make it. At TED University, Jonathan Klein of Getty Images shows some of the most iconic, and talks about what happens when a generation sees an image so powerful it can't look away -- or back.

Photos that changed the world

Photographs have the power to provoke reactions that lead to real-world change, even if images themselves do not directly alter reality. A single photo, like the first view of Earth from space, helped spark the environmental movement by revealing the planet’s fragility. Images from the Vietnam War, Abu Ghraib, and famine in Sudan have driven public action and shifted policy by making distant suffering suddenly personal. When faced with powerful images, people must choose whether to look away or to act.