Charles Traub is a renowned photographer, and he specialized in street photos of people going on their way. Photography as a medium is interesting because it allows the capture of a moment, and eternalizes it for as long as the negatives exist.
Photos function as so many things in our world. They are entertainment, memories and that which we seek more than anything. Photos are the preservation of moments long gone, in perfect form. Unlike Dorian Grey the photo will never age, get sick, and die. It will forever exist as a memory of what once was. This is what humans are eternally searching for, it is the complete domination of nature. Regardless of what happens to the paper the photo is printed on, the replica of the individual incapsulated in the photo will never suffer another woe.
The photos themselves however do suffer from the inability to tell the entire story. From the photo we can tell what an individual looked like, and based on their expression we can guess their emotional state, but we will never really know.The best we can do is guess. The photo is the perfect preservation, but it can never tell the entire story, and therein lies the tragedy.