As I was perusing the many articles on Titanic that have been published this week commemorating the 100th anniversary of her sinking, I was awestruck by the myriad pictures that are out there in cyberspace. This is one collection of such pictures, and there are literally thousands of such collections. Each time I look at them I am drawn into the time period. Its as if the pictures take me back to a place I’ve never been before, like some strange pictorial time machine that allows me to enter and whisks me back to the time in question. I’ve always said that if one is to really understand history, one must empathize with its telling. One of the best ways to do this is through pictures. Emotions can become stirred, and your imagination can run just a bit wilder. The viewer can transport themselves into the period in question. In this case, the ill fated Titanic.
I find myself looking at the faces in the pictures. They have no idea, as none of us would, that they were about to sail into history. Some of them lived to tell the tale of that harrowing early morning, but most would die, their grave being the resting place where Titanic came to settle at the bottom of the Atlantic. Their faces almost seem to haunt us from the past, as if we know a secret that they do not when they look in the direction of the camera. The more I look, the more I feel as though I was once there, although I know I was not. These pictures are a record of frozen time, of a day and time that is no longer with us and will not be again.
I find myself looking at the faces in the pictures. They have no idea, as none of us would, that they were about to sail into history. Some of them lived to tell the tale of that harrowing early morning, but most would die, their grave being the resting place where Titanic came to settle at the bottom of the Atlantic. Their faces almost seem to haunt us from the past, as if we know a secret that they do not when they look in the direction of the camera. The more I look, the more I feel as though I was once there, although I know I was not. These pictures are a record of frozen time, of a day and time that is no longer with us and will not be again.
The unseen Titanic: Photos reveal life aboard doomed ship | Fox News: