The communicative power of images

I received this month's Harper's Magazine in the mail today. Inside there is a photo essay with some beautiful and haunting images from Haiti that depict the impact of the earthquake. One image that stands out is of a small box, perhaps 8 ft. wide and 10 ft. tall, with curtains acting as a fourth wall and a piece of sheet metal lodged in the front for extra "security." The caption underneath reads, "an improvised house." It occurred to me that I had not seen any images of the destruction in Haiti before seeing this photo essay, and so it wasn't until today that I was able to concretize an understanding of the magnitude of damage done by that earthquake and the impact it had on human living conditions. These images were thus very powerful because they communicated a harsh reality that I would have otherwise been unable to see.