The Power of Pictures

     If you were to ask me what the most persuasive medium is, I'd probably tell you music.  However, just because it is the most persuasive doesn't mean it is the most pervasive.  While music will always have the most impact to me as a persuasive medium, simple images and pictures will be a part of our lives 24/7.  While walking down a street, we are subjected to many stimuli in the form of images.  Pictures, billboards, and store signs all jump out at us, and even at home, we fill our space with pictures and images that appeal to us individually.  A simple color pallet can affect an entire room with complacency and a calming mood, while more complex portraits and murals can evoke powerful emotions such as happiness, joy, and sadness with such accuracy that it seems as though the artist knew how he wanted you to feel.  It is the artist's purpose to instill these emotions within you.
     When I watched the above video for the first time, the images were so powerful to me that I actually began to cry.  The artist's purpose was startlingly clear, and the accuracy of the images was phenomenal.  Shrouded in gray, the obscurity of the images was very realistic, as I do believe that this is what soldiers see on the front lines; a haze, and an inability to focus on the minute details of an event.  This accuracy and purpose is what makes images so pervasive throughout our lives.