What is a picture worth?

A picture is worth a thousand words? More like a picture is worth a thousand words in context. That is what Errol Morris says in his New York Times column “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire”.  Errol goes into the depth of a meaning of a picture. What was great about it was he took the reader through a process. He showed a picture of a ship and slowly added more details about it. At first I had only a slight idea of what it was. An old cruise liner? Maybe the Titanic or the Lusitania? In the end he revealed it was in fact a picture of the Lusitania in a news article about how it was sunk my a German U-boat. About 1200 people died, and 100 of them were Americans. This act was the final push that brought America into WWI  Then he showed the picture at the end, and I felt so much meaning in that picture. I knew the history. I connected to it emotional. I realized the significance of the picture but only with the help of the information presented. Another great example of this is in a New York Times article about an Army rocket killing at least 19 people in Syria. Just looking at the picture I see destroyed buildings and people gathering. It could be construction or it could be some natural tragedy struck the country and the people gathered to mourn the loss. As I read I discovered that the destroyed buildings were the effects of a rocket; it killed 19 people and more are still buried under the rubble. Immediately I see a strong internal conflict from the photo. I see a Syrian conflict that has been going on for years and thousands being killed because of it. At the same time I see the world coming together to help end the conflict and aid in the rescue of the survivors. I would never see that in the photo. No one could. The point is without context a photo is just a frozen moment of forgotten time.