At first glance of this image, one would see wedding pictures of the bride and groom on their wedding day. Taking a closer look, you see their straight faces and the lack of happiness displayed in the room. It is a close up shot, so we are unable to see the rest of the room but the three people that are present in the photograph have solemn looks on their faces.
I found this to be intriguing because it is unusual to appear unhappy on their wedding day. Then it made me think about marriage in their culture, and how it may differ than it does in American culture. By looking deeper into the setting of the image, I was able to determine that weddings may not be that important or as lavish as a celebration as they are in western culture because this wedding is being hosted in a structure with dirt floors and minimal decorations. Taking a step back and looking at the overall feel of the photo, it does have a dark gloomy air about it. The only light part about the image is the clothes on the people featured in the picture, but other than that the rest of the image is dark. This gloomy air matches the facial expressions of subjects of the photo.
As we have seen from other readings, photographs and cameras are ways of producing and using power within a society. Both Sontag and Azoulay discuss the power of the photograph and how the camera itself has power to relive certain atrocities. Although this picture is not showing an image from war, the faces of the people in the photograph can lead the viewer to determine that something has happened in order to create those solemn faces. This then lead me to think about who was taking the photograph, and who made the decision to have this event photographed in the first place. It lead me to a string of questions that concerned the reason of the photograph, the photographer, and the intended purpose of the photograph. Azoulay and Sontag bring up these questions in their work as well, all of which relate back to the power that photography can carry in any given society.