Ron Haviv: Beautiful Destruction

     It is often very hard to decide how I feel about images like this. Ron Haviv, a renowned photojournalist, took this photograph for Amazon Aid, an organization seeking to protect the Amazon rainforest from human destruction. Before I looked at the caption, I thought to myself, "Wow, that is beautiful. That is absolutely gorgeous. The colors!" But then I read the following: 

The effects of gold mining on an area that was pristine rain forest twenty years ago.

     Woah. So you mean to tell me that the beautiful plateau I'm gazing at in this image was filled with plant and animal life twenty years ago? It was green and flourishing, not blue and dead? I honestly thought I was looking at a photograph of the Arctic or Alaska, or maybe the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah due to the presence of a motorcyclist.  

     Being that I saw this image on Ron Haviv's personal website instead of that of Amazon Aid,  the way I viewed the image was starkly different. I didn't come across it with the expectation that I would be viewing a symbol of destruction, an example of what once was but is no longer. When viewing the website of a photojournalist (especially since this is in his "Commercial Portfolio"), I try to keep as open a mind as possible. I don't go into it with cynicism, because very often photojournalists seek to expose us not only to destruction but also to beauty and culture. If I were on Amazon Aid's website I would have been immediately curious as to what this foreign-looking piece of Amazon land was. When I think of the Amazon I think of immense amounts of greenery. What is seen in this image - this never comes to mind.

     In saying all of this, I don't want to draw too much attention to the meaning of the image, but rather to the way in which it is presented to an audience, as well as the image's need for text to explain such destruction.
     A photographer's personal website and an organization's website are two different sites of viewing the same image. For this reason, they affect how we see the image itself in different ways. In both scenarios, since the image itself is so aesthetically pleasing and serene, it must be explained to us using text that this is not, according to Amazon Aid, beauty, but instead it is destruction.