A naturalistic enthymeme is the assumption that photos present reality and an enthymeme is when one premise remains unstated. According to Finnegan, a naturalistic enthymeme is when, “we assume photographs to be ‘true’ or ‘real’ until we are given reason to doubt them (Finnegan 135).
Below is an image from digitalphotomentor.com that was taken by Kevin Carter and titled the “Starving Child and Vulture”. This photo caused a lot of controversy because of how heart wrenching the image is. In this image we see a starving little girl and a vulture lurking in the background, staring directly as her. The first premise in this photo is that this photo represents reality. The second is that this photo is of a starving girl with a creeping vulture in the background. In conclusion,this girl is in real danger of being attacked by this vulture. Now, this conclusion is the premise that has been omitted and been left to the audience’s assumption based off of his or her’s viewing of the photo. They believe this photo to be a reality, thus they have created an enthymeme.
Because of the publicity that this photo received and the belief in this naturalistic enthymeme, people were outraged at the photographer. They were frustrated because it appears that the photographer is watching as a little girl is in danger of her life, both from the vulture as well as from starvation (Digital Photo Mentor). The consequences of this photo is that without knowing the full context, the onlooker will automatically assume this to be true. Due to all the stress and hate from the public, Kevin Carter ended up taking his life in 1994, one year after the picture was released. These were the negative consequences from this photo, but some of the positives that resulted from this picture was the awareness to world hunger that it brought. Hearing about world hunger is one thing, but seeing it with one’s own eyes is a complete other aspect. Seeing the utter helplessness of this child and how her life is on the line caused people to jump to action. It also made people think of what is ethical when taking pictures and what is not. Having the photographer alter the picture in such a way to make it stand out more resulted in major consequences that may or may not have occurred if he had done things differently (Digital Photo Mentor). If the viewer knew the truth, they may not have been so quick to judge the photographer, or feel the immediacy and urge to help. What this photo does not show is the mother standing off to the side out of view of the camera shot. The photo also had a special lens to make the bird look closer than it really was. Knowing these two truths would not have caused the onlooker to be so emotional and heart wrenched. This image is quite similar to the skull controversy explained by Finnegan, Lewis and Farid. The skull controversy wanted to raise awareness to the drought in the land and manipulated the image just like Kevin Carter did here, in order to make the situation to appear more severe than it actually was. The skull controversy caused the viewer to take what they saw and believe it to be a reality. According to Finnegan, “Participants in the skull controversy, particularly those who attacked the skull pictures as ‘fakes’, grounded their arguments in the naturalistic enthymeme” (136). The photo of the child was similar to the skull controversy in the way that it caused people to assume things about the photo while not having the full picture. Both were, in a sense, deceived because of the thwarting of the image that took place. Lewis furthered this truth by saying that, “we should judge a photograph as a collection of purposed facts about the world that is accurate if claims are true and inaccurate if they’re not” (Lewis, 3). In other words, people should be skeptical of what images they see as it may not be completely true. Images can be easily tampered with to create various meanings and results. In conclusion, it is clear how images can have different meanings and consequences by the way they are presented to the public.
Work Cited:
https://www.digitalphotomentor.com/20-most-famous-photographs/
file:///home/chronos/u-3ac062d9a03d410019e04c597f2009fa664a3ea0/Downloads/Finnegan–The%20Naturalistic%20Enthymeme.pdf
file:///home/chronos/u-3ac062d9a03d410019e04c597f2009fa664a3ea0/Downloads/Lewis–Don%E2%80%99t%20Believe%20What%20You%20See%20in%20the%20Papers.pdf
Thinking Rhetorically at GCSU 