Often what is nearest is hardest of all to see - try asking a fish to define water. Distance opens a door to revelation. When the first great distances of space were conquered by technology, a camera altered the human perspective on the Earth as radically as Galileo did when he proved the sun was the center of the universe. The ecology movement was born from a photographically altered consciousness.
The power of photography: how photographs changed our lives (ed. Abbeville Pr, 1991)