Errol Morris on the photographs of Abu Ghraib

Errol Morris is blogging on photography for the New York Times, and his latest article is on the long story of the identity of the man under the hood.

The photo of a man holding a photo of the man in the iconic photo created an associative link much stronger than mere words might have. We see the man who purports to be the Hooded Man in a photograph, holding the Hooded Man photograph.

… It is said that seeing is believing, but often it’s the other way around. We do not form our beliefs on the basis of what we see; rather, what we see is determined by our beliefs. We see not what is there, but rather what we want to see or expect to see.

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