Response to Case Study: Tourism, Fashion and 'The Other'

While reading this case study my mind was racing with examples of western fascination with the other in both travel and fashion and notably most all of them could be traced back to my Instagram feed. Almost daily I scroll through images posted by everyone from Vogue Magazine and Conde Nast  Traveler to a friend studying abroad and see just the type of exploitation of "the other" that was described in the reading. One example I immediately thought about while reading how people in "exotic" countries will dress up in traditional clothing and wait for a tourist to pay to take their picture with them, is when students go on week long service trips to third world countries and take pictures with the impoverished youth slap on a filter and then post the image to Instagram. In the case of posing for staged pictures with people in traditional dress, as Wells noted on page 242, tourists go into their travels expecting to see these mystical exotic images, so when they arrive they do their best to seek out the images for themselves to take home to show their family and friends that they had a successful and enriching trip. I feel as though something similar is happening with the students who share their photos on social media of their service trips. In posing with the impoverished youth that they spend a few days helping they are exploiting the children's suffering to put forth a better image of themselves as someone who is involved and conscious of international struggle. Not to say that these people aren't doing good and making a difference but there is a sharp disconnect for me when western youth place these pictures on Instagram and Facebook and collect "likes" and comments while the impoverished youth in the photo is left in essentially the same state they were found, soon be forgotten by the wester student's followers and friends.
When I reached the fashion section of the reading that discussed the sexualization of non-white woman in the fashion industry I immediately recalled a recent spread in Vogue magazine (images I first encountered on Instagram) of model Karlie Kloss in Peru. This spread is an interesting flip on the examples given in the book, rather than the non-white female being objectified it was the non-white male being objectified. Miss Kloss poses in Valentino among young non-white men dressed in traditional Peruvian equestrian garb. In many of the shots the men are used as background decoration, parts of their bodies cropped out of the photographs or their faces covered by their wide brim hats. Even their clothing subdues their image in the pictures, dressed in all white and beige Kloss over powers them in vibrant reds and oranges. There purpose in the spread is to add an air of exoticism while facilitating the means of making sure Kloss and the clothing take center stage.

The Picture Problem

Technology and imaging have fused, changing the way that we interact with the world. Phones and cameras have become extensions of the body, allowing us to see and share in new ways. This revolution has improved our lives in countless ways; it has also numbed the very things that make us human. 

One  experiment regarded the effectiveness of physical breast examinations versus mammograms. The study concluded that both tests were equally effective in reducing the mortality rate, yet mammograms are consistently seen as the better method. A contributor lamented, "But we simply don’t trust our tactile sense as much as our visual sense.” A reason for this is the incredible disparity the human factor will create when interpreting these images. "One radiologist caught eighty-five per cent of the cancers the first time around. Another caught only thirty-seven per cent." Without a skilled eye looking at any image, it's just an image. It's only with talent and training these images can be dissected. 

It's true, a picture today is worth ten thousand words. A picture today is often more trusted than witness testimony, and it is seen as more permanent. Even in sports pundits will say "Film don't lie". The picture problem is really a humanity problem. We have lost touch with each other and instead have put our faith into images that can be manipulated and cheated. We must realize moving forward that images have restrictions, and we need to put our trust into people, not only images.

Response to The Picture Problem

               Before reading this article, The Picture Problem, I had no idea that the intentions and usages of images could be so dynamic and powerful. Hearing that armed forces based some of their very important and powerful strikes strictly on small screens only a few square inches in size made me rethink how I look at photographs. Based on this article, the way that images are interpreted is very much personally based. Someone’s past experiences and influences can change the entire picture of what the results of a mammogram or air strike can be. Even when millions of dollars are spent on technology, it never means that that device that was made to create perfect results. Even if the equipment works properly, it doesn’t mean that the person in use of the device will interpret the information correctly. And what was really surprising were the varying and different conclusions that the lot of experienced doctors had on the same mammogram. Even when presented with the same information and same image, many different conclusions were determined. And the decision based on one doctor’s results could change the attitude that one person has towards their life. If one doctor told you that you were more likely to have cancer, based on your mammogram results, you would most likely believe them. But because of the variance in interpretations, even if the results were or weren’t correct, that doctor may be misleading the patient. While it is always advised upon to get a second opinion, I’m sure not everybody does. This could mean large impacts on one person’s life. And in the other large topic discussed in this article: war, this could mean a large impact on many people’s lives. If the interpretations of one pilot are wrong, that could mean bombing innocent people and hurting bi-standards.

               It was stated that at the beginning of the first Gulf War, pilots set out to destroy SCUD missiles which were a large danger to Americans. This meant one thing, send planes out to try and destroy them. But there was one problem with this situation: what if the images being seen from thousands of feet up weren’t as accurate as they had hoped to be? Soon after the jets flew out and began targeting these SCUD missiles, pilots would come back to base and report the number of targets that they had destroyed that flight. Many of them said that they had in fact blown up some of these dangerous objects, but when in fact, they actually hadn’t. The misinterpretation of these images that the pilots were seeing could have meant shooting a missile accidentally at an oil tanker, which when looked at from high above, kind of looked like the target that they had had in mind. Now that doesn’t mean only blowing up a possibly non-threatening tanker, but it could have also meant hurting a random individual that was driving the vehicle or was near that vehicle at the time.  Imagery and the sense of sight have become so over powering in our day and age that we can make ourselves believe whatever we want to see. And for those pilots, they wanted to see those SCUD missiles. This article really makes the readers visible of the mistakes that can be made because we are so trusting of one sense. Has photography and imagery become more of a weapon rather than a useful tool and art form to us as humans? I think that people need to take a step backwards when looking at certain images and analyze them closer. There could be more truth to them than we think, but there could also be less information in them than we think we see. It can almost be thought of as an optical illusion, making people’s vision become distorted and bending the truth.

Photography and Painting

        While reading this week’s passages in Wells, I found myself really interested in the symbiotic relationship between painting and photography. The bulk of the reading centered around the debate about whether photography is art or simply a recording device, but the way photography affects art is really important as well. When photographers found out the creative prospects of a photograph, “Pictorialists” tried to mimic the effect of a canvas and make their images blurred to evoke the properties of a painting. To me, this isn’t embracing what photography can do— it is merely trying to mimic a painting. 

However, the tables turned when photography became a cheaper and easier way to take portraits, which in my opinion is a form of art itself. Sure, the rich were still paying for their expensive painted portraits, but such an immediate art form as photography was perfect for the middle class. It’s as if photography became the art form of the middle class, not only seen in portraits but also in the ability of amateur, everyday people to take pictures wherever they wanted as cameras became more common. This also brings up another point in the reading, which was the fact that painting could be seen as an “elitist” art, while photography is “anti-elitist” because it could be reproduced. Painters were always seen as some sort of a gifted, almost divine type of person, causing their works to be expensive and valued highly. But photographs were a technical art that could be passed around and used for communication purposes, highlighting a key difference between how photography and painting were viewed at the time. 

I found another interesting intersection between painting and photography to be during the realism movement. Realism attempts to capture life as it truly is— no artistic bias (if that’s even possible!), and depictions of everyday scenes and people. However, photography was able to do that better than painters could. Photography has the unique ability to document exactly what is in front of it, a quality paintings cannot do, due to the artistic hand and medium. I enjoyed the quote about how a realist painting was scene as a “faulty Daguerrotype.” That phrase alone highlights how even though painting was seen as a higher art form, it couldn’t beat photography when it came to depicting real life. 

Also, painting owes a huge part of it’s history to the invention of photography because of it’s ability to be used as research. Now, painters could take pictures of places and models and piece together their compositions, lessening sketching and sitting time for models. Photography changed the way the painting process occured, and some of the biggest changes were seen during the Impressionist movement. Monet, for example, painted as if his paintings were snapshots of everyday life. I agree with Wells’ observation that in a way, photography freed the painter from his “responsibility for literal depiction.” The expressive brushwork and focus on optics and light of Impressionist paintings had photography to thank for the ability to paint things as the artist sees them. The subject matter of paintings expanded to include middle class scenes and “plein air” paintings instead of the typical mythological or historical depictions prior. 

It’s just funny to retrospectively note the huge impact that photography had on painting, even through the intense debates about whether photography was an art form. In a way, isn’t it like photography helped create the art of the impressionists or some of the most famous painters of the twentieth century? Photography basically created “Gare Saint Lazare” and “Bain a la Grenouillere.” Even if someone would argue that photographs are not art, the idea of photography certainly has created fine art itself. 

Perspective and Photography

In the “Photography: A Critical Introduction” readings there was a passage on the effects of perspective in photography (page 265). As a painter and sculptor who’s work is largely inspired by the visual phenomenon and subsequent conceptual issues of perspective and its relationship to spatial experiences this passage I found this passage to be particularly interesting. Wells describes perspective as a system of visual organization that dominated Western art from the Renaissance until the early 20th Century. Although Wells’ larger point in this specific passage is that “aesthetic conventions reflect broader sets of ideas”, I believe that the issue of perspective in photography is also largely relevant to the overall focus of this reading: the relationship between traditional art and photography, and their respective ability to depict reality.

While there are many intrinsic properties of the photographic medium, lens distortion is often overlooked. The human eye is essentially a fixed focal length lens, often quoted to fall between 17mm and 24mm. Wide-angle camera lenses falling into the same focal length range display significant distortion, with objects closer to the camera enlarged and objects farther away appearing to rapidly diminish in scale. Additionally, as focal lengths become wider, barrel distortion increases significantly. While, telephoto lenses of much longer focal length solve problems of barrel distortion, they appear to flatten the pictorial space to noticeable degrees. Although the human eye sees in a similar format to wide-angle lenses, the brain corrects these distortions so that we may accurately perceive depth and straight lines remain straight.

This leads me to question why the photograph became such a symbol of realistic depiction when it is an inherently flawed system while a well-trained observational draughtsman can accurately depict illusionistic space with no distortion.

Perhaps someone with a better knowledge of camera lenses can elaborate on whether or not such wide angle or telephoto lenses were available at the time.

Malcom Gladwell Reaction

I enjoyed reading all of Gladwell’s points he made in this article. Coming from the same author of the book Blink, I found it interesting that the theme of this article was similar to the book. The similarities revolved around the main point of both were essentially the same- that sometimes human senses and intuition can prove to be more accurate and valid than a technical, more factual way of explaining truth. We see this in the article with the example of mammography and hand testing; and in the book, the example of professional art dealers deeming ancient works as either an original or a copy, by either first impression and feel, versus extensive research and records.

While digesting the material, I continued to contemplate how Western culture sort of seeps into this mentality of technology and science pervading as rational and factual. Last semester, I took an international development class and my professor made a point that will always stick with me. She told us that Western ideas around science seem to look down upon spirituality and beliefs that are not rooted in provable, technical science. Though, she said that our form of ‘provable science’ is merely our own form of religion. Our god-technology!  This thought, coming from a figure that represented academia and facts for someone like myself, was astounding. Was I now at church, or college?

My brain connected this thought to this article, because it is kind of proof of how we put our faith in these technologies, even if they aren’t necessarily above our intelligence. A nurse explaining, “It feels like cancer” would not be taken as serious as “The machine readings showed cancer”. Relating this to college kids, we all take Facebook photos as truth. This is a less technical example, but I still think it works to make the same point. We flip through the photos posted in an online newsfeed, and we tend to take photos as truth. They’re all smiling… so they must have had a wonderful time! They have so much fun! We assume a fact is attached to a photograph; we consider photos ‘proof’. But, it’s not. It is an image. And images aren't necessarily representative of truth.

          That is not to say that these technologies are bad, but we do need to learn to trust ourselves in a way that recognizes machines as only part of the puzzle. We need to come to terms that we still have limitations, and start to understand that discomfort that comes with uncertainty, and not having all the answers all of the time. Human interpretation is required in conjunction with the technology we have (which we ourselves have created, remember). In order for these technologies to be used appropriately, we need to recognize this and trust ourselves. 

Gladwell Response by Ransom

            In this article, Gladwell compares two types of photography that relies on the accurate analysis of the photograph in order to save lives.  In the Gulf War, there was a four point six million dollar device that had the ability to take a high resolution infrared photograph of a four and a half mile area.  This was used to find trucks that were firing or transporting missiles, also known as scuds.  Bombers claimed to trust the cameras eyes better than their own.  Air force officials claimed to have taken out about a hundred scuds.  The sad truth is that the number of definite kills is zero.  Barry Watts, a former Air Force colonel stated, “It’s night out. You think you’ve got something on the sensor.  You roll out your weapons.  Bombs go off.  It’s really hard to tell what you did.”  To seem so casual about bombing a country is awful.  Relying on photographic evidence when there are possible innocent civilians to be killed is a sad part of war.  This brings up the question of whether is it possible to put to much faith in pictures.  The answer is yes.  Photographs can display truths but they are not always accurate.  When a photo is taken it turns two dimensional which alters perspective.  Thus altering the subject’s perspective on what they are really looking at.

            The second type of photography that Gladwell brings up is Mammography.  This is the process where women have their breasts X-rayed to find cancerous tumors.  This is another tool in which photography is trying to find the truth but can not always be trusted.  Doctors have to analyze each X-ray with a new set of eyes because they have come to realize how much the women’s breast can differ.  There is not a clear-cut answer to whether the doctor is seeing a cancerous calcium deposit or not.  Doctors have to rely on the X-rays because it is has the ability to show the truth even if that does not happen in all cases.

            These two instances of relying on the truth of the camera bring up the point that we cannot always trust the camera.  In both situations, the camera can lie and either people will die from bombings or people will suffer through chemotherapy and other methods of ridding cancer.  The Canadians bring up a strong point “that a skilled pair of fingertips can find out an extraordinary amount about the health of a breast, and that we should not automatically value what we see in a picture over what we learn from our other senses.”  In order to find the real truth of anything it is necessary to observe from multiple angles as well as senses.  There is a reason why humans have more than just eyes and that is because we use all our senses in order to interpret reality. 

"The Picture Problem" Response

Malcolm Gladwell’s “The Picture Problem: Mammography, Air Power, and the Limits of Looking” describes the problems that arise when “trusting a camera more than our own eyes”. Gladwell is referring to illusions, as well as wrong information that one deduces from believing a photograph as absolute truth. The three primary examples presented in this article were issues with images from mammograms, the LANTIRN navigation in the Gulf war, and the precision of bombs. In each of these cases Gladwell demonstrates flaws in the interpretation of images. In mammography, doctors rely on the contrast of color in x-rays to detect tumors but  Gladwell explains that in dense tissue areas, it is impossible to see tumors because they are the same grayish white of healthy breast tissue. He argues that manually feeling the breast can be more effective than a photograph. 

In the Gulf war, a 4 million dollar camera called LANTIRN was used to detect if “scud” missiles had hit their target. It was believed that what the camera picked up was truth, but in many cases, due to wrong positioning of the camera and darkness, false conclusions were reached. Many times decoy targets were hit and it was indistinguishable from the actual target in the photograph. Additionally, the precision of small bombs is effected by interpretation of photography because if one interprets the information ever so slightly wrong, the bomb will hit the wrong target and cause harm. Gladwell proves an important point that while photography is a helpful tool, it is not always greater than our own senses. 

A Response The Picture Problem, Brooke Foti

Malcolm Gladwell discusses the limits of humans attempting to interpret certain applications of photographic imagery in his article "The Picture Problem." In his tagline, he quips, “Mammography, air power, and the limits of looking,” and while Gladwell certainly writes about mammography and air power, what he is really showing us is that even the most seemingly reliable technology is constantly in question, and rightfully so. But to me, it seems that the most questioning is being done by those who have the least vested interest. So, who is doing the questioning, and what is it that drives them to do so?

There are a few quotes in this article that are particularly pertinent to the problem of interpreting photography. Charles Rosen and Henri Zerner said, “that photography not only does not, but cannot lie, is a matter of belief, an article of faith. We tend to trust the camera more than our own eyes.” Gladwell himself writes that, “there are few cultural reflexes more deeply ingrained than the idea that a picture has the weight of truth.” This problem of trying to decode a photograph is not a new problem, but one that has existed since the invention of photography. If the photograph existed, then whatever was depicted in it was the absolute truth; this seemed the reality for years. When surrealist photographers emerged, viewers of their work now had to try to wrap their heads around what they were seeing and eventually start to realize that photography can, in fact, lie.

The fact of the matter is that photography is an ever-evolving technology in every facet of its many applications. A radiologist can look at a scan and think they see something, and often make important decisions without a second opinion, even though they are fully aware that their imagery is not infallible. According to Gladwell, there were several instances in recent history where war bombers had to make quick decisions on where to drop a bomb based on little or poor information from an image, but were able to make those choices, albeit they had their failures. It is true that just the average person expects to flip through a set of pictures and see images of the world as it exists in reality...but in the age of Photoshop and the Internet, more and more people are actually questioning what they see in a photograph instead of just accepting it as truth. 

Unfortunately, it seems as though the images that garner the most speculation are the ones that matter the least. Pictures of the Kardashians and the Jenners pollute the news, with people scrutinizing every detail of every image ever posted to social media. People actually took the time to write full articles about every detail of the evolution of Kylie Jenner’s lips, questioning whether or not the discrepancies between photographs indicated that the teen got lip injections or if she was just using some sort of sorcerous makeup technique. And of course, the Internet was rumored to be imploding when images of Kim Kardashian were released, and everyone just had to know if the images were real or if they were digitally enhanced.

But why are these questions so important to people? Why is it that masses of people will go to great lengths to examine every detail of a celebrity’s latest Instagram post, but will probably not do the same for something that actually requires a great deal of scrutiny? And most importantly, what makes people believe one photograph over another? Why is it that a Gulf War bomber is willing to drop a bomb somewhere or a surgeon is inclined to remove a woman’s breast based on one photograph, and yet half of the Internet population cannot sleep until they know the answer to something that is hardly worth a second thought?

The answer that I’m offering to these questions is that photography is a contextual technology. Therefore, the context of the image, and also of the viewer, will dictate the response. The war bomber is in a high-stress environment with limited information, and must make a rapid decision that can affect many people; he simply did not have the time to speculate. Sometimes, when you are scouring a screen or an image for something specific, you might jump quickly to assume that you’ve found it, even if you actually haven’t. This very well could’ve been the case with the Gulf War bombers and Colin Powell’s experts. 

The radiologist is also in a position of offering a life-or-death decision based on what they think they are reading in a scan. Gladwell articulates that the decision is based on the ‘temperament’ on the individual radiologist, and that the results on one scan can vary greatly from one radiologist to another based on their instinctual inclinations. One radiologist may see nothing and decide that the patient is normal, and the next may see what they believe to be a cancerous mass and decide to act aggressively. These decisions are incredibly important, and the radiologist must rely on their instincts and education to point them in the right direction. In the context of the radiologist, however, a mammogram is actually just one tool that they have to locate and diagnose cancer, so it would be understandable that they would act cautiously when they suspect an abnormality.

As for the Internet, I don’t know that I’ll ever be sure of why some people need to endlessly pick apart every detail of an image that really doesn’t matter. As the technology evolves, so do the people that use it. From a mammogram to a bomber’s viewfinder to an Instagram post – there could be something there in the picture, or there could be nothing. Maybe it’s not important, but maybe it is. As long as photographs are around, there will be opportunities for people to explore them, and in the end it will always be up to them to decide.

The Picture Problem

In “The Picture Problem,” Gladwell analyzed the interpretation of photographs in two realms we do not often relate to photography, creating an interesting perspective of the viewing and progression of photography today. Gladwell made connections to United States Air Force fighter jets and mammography. The photographs relevant to the U.S. Air Force fighter jets were taken with a state of the art camera and are considered concrete evidence of what was below the plane during an operation to destroy rockets, called Scud launchers. However, these photos, “Need to be interpreted, and the human task of interpretation is often a bigger obstacle than the technical task of picture-taking,” leaving room for human error (Gladwell). Similarly, Gladwell compares this possibility of human error to the reading of mammograms. However, mammograms are significantly more difficult to interpret due to their crude nature. The thought provoking material Gladwell provides us with questions whether or not we rely too much on an image to tell us the truth, when in reality the truth, “has to do with going beyond the picture” (Gladwell). The truth can also be found using alternative senses, but perhaps it is not as comfortable for humans because we cannot confirm right or wrong as clearly, nor is it as easy to communicate senses such as touch to another individual, making visual conformations a more assured alternative, reflecting back to the Canadian studies of clinical breast examinations vs. mammograms. Though photography has confirmed factual evidence in previous circumstances, such as the end of ventre à terre, it is important to keep in mind that not everything we see is true. A picture may not be able to lie but it is possible for the human eye to be deceived.

The Picture Problem Response

On the surface, Malcolm Gladwell’s article The Picture Problem appeared to describe and compare the inefficiencies of breast cancer screening imagery and problems with real time video monitors in fighter jets. While this is essentially true on a superficial level, the real problem he describes is one that is inherent to photograph, the idea that a photo is fact. While it is undeniable that photographs are documentation of a specific place, scenario and moment in time, they are not always so cut and dry. According to the article, this is largely because although the photograph never visually changes at a physical level, the interpretation of that photograph often alters from person to person.

Ambiguities in each photo call for debate about what is actually being seen. Gladwell uses the example of a particularly complex mammogram to illustrate this. Ten doctors were asked what they saw in the mammogram and four different conclusions were determined from it.

Similarly, Gladwell talked about the interpretation of satellite surveillance photos that were taken above Iraq just before the war in Iraq had begun. The United States’ Secretary of State declared to the United Nations that the photos were hard proof that Iraq was creating and holding biological weapons. Pictured, he claimed, was a chemical bunker and outside was a decontamination truck in case something were to go wrong in the bunker. Later a different analyst with no political agenda nor stake in the photo in any way said that based on the size and shape of the vehicle there was no way it could be a decontamination vehicle. Instead, it was most likely a simple fire truck.

The whole argument reminds me of the photograph of the loch ness monster. Some see it as the long neck and back of the creature emerging out of the water. Others see an oddly shaped log. However, will we every really know the answer? 

There is never certainty in a photograph even though everyone wants to believe that there is. As stated in the article, we trust photographs more than our own eyes. However, the inherent ambiguities that arise in almost every photo leaves wiggle room for interpretation, so at the end of the day can we ever rely on photographs to be hard evidence? I do not think so. As Gladwell writes, “the picture promises certainty, and it cannot deliver on that promise.”

The Picture Problem Response

In “The Picture Problem” Malcolm Gladwell discusses the inherently erroneous nature of human interpretation of photography. While Gladwell’s discussion is not a new one, he examines it through the lens of photography’s personal and political implications in medical and military use. Even across a wide variety of uses, the problem of human interpretation has profound effect. Gladwell cites several studies across both fields that point towards drastic margins of error in cases where human lives hang in the balance. His findings show that our blind reliance of photographic imagery is perhaps misguided. After all, cameras are human controlled which leads a distorted depiction before the shutter is even pressed. After the image is produced, it needs to be interpreted. Gladwell’s article makes the point that even with the astounding advances in imaging technology, human interpretation is still severely limited and perhaps even contaminating to the purity of a photograph. However, this raises the question of what is a photograph without human interpretation. Is the fact that photography is so relatable in its supposedly faithful depiction of what we see the reason that it dominates our visual culture? Is photography inherently flawed or is human interpretation really that far off? For me, it is a combination of both. Photography is a cultural institution that we are not raised to question, especially outside of academic and art-historical contexts, and thus our interpretative sense is unrefined. This argument calls back to mid-twentieth century conceptual work by artists Rene Magritte and Joseph Kosuth who questioned truth in objecthood, reproduction, and definition. Gladwell questions where truth resides in a photographic image, if at all, and to me his findings indicate a problem not in photography or its interpretation, but in our reliance on it.

Gladwell Response

As stated in Gladwell's article, ever since Eadweard Muybridge disproved the convention of ventre à terre, “belly to the ground”, with his sequential photographs of a galloping horse, photography seemed to capture reality and truth itself.  Methods of photography have been adapted by different disciplines to assist in tasks in the medical and military fields. The medical field uses mammography as a screening tool that aids in the detection of breast cancer.  The military uses a device called LANTIRN that would take a high-resolution infrared photograph of a four-and-a-half mile range to assist in the detection of tractor trailers that the Iraqi’s were using to fire rockets from. These images; however, show a reality that humans must decipher; the truth must be interpreted.  Gladwell speaks with a physician, Dave Dershaw, in the article, who explains all of the different kinds of calcium deposits, lumps, and bumps and the plethora of different traits that make something benign or malignant.  This is the same as the military devices, although there is an image that shows what might be a possible target, that possible target may not be a threat at all.  Human perception and interpretation is needed to make these tools successful, and even then, that is not always the case. Mammograms only increase the chance of detection by ten percent, and the definite number of Scud kills due to LANTIRN was zero.  These methods are shrouded in controversy, especially mammography, because of these low numbers.  In the case of mammography, ten percent means that thousands of lives can be saved every year.  These methods could be better, but as of right now these are the best, and doctors and military officials alike will use them to increase the chances of fighting the enemy, whether it be a disease or a human enemy.  These methods are not as strong as they could be because the error that cannot really be effected is the human one.  These images require human interpretation.  Human interpretation changes based on the individual and some are better at interpreting these images than others; some are better at finding the truth. Technology, in this day and age, has become a comfort.  Not only does it make lives easier in day-to-day life, but mammography and devices like the LANTRIN make the public feel as if there is something that can be done to keep them healthy or safe.  These images capture reality, but without human interpretation the images are simply images.  These technologies combined with human interpretation comforts the woman who was just diagnosed with stage 1 breast cancer and can be treated, just as an attack could be thwarted due to LANTIRN’s images.  Tools and technologies aid in the detection of a threat, but it is the human interpretation that must interpret the truth from that image; whether the threat is real or not.