Visual Analysis
26 May 2010
Samantha Mudd
Conviction
Being held against your will, feeling like a captive animal, this is a feeling that is distant from the vast majority of our society; being held as a prisoner of war. It must be one of the most terrifying experiences of one’s life, to be held captive against your will. As a fear that I imagine most people share, capturing an image like this has the possibility to reach out to millions of individuals across the globe.
This image invoked a powerful response instantly within me as I stumbled across it. The image was taken by Jean-Marc Bouju of The Associated Press. It portrays a detained man embracing his child, behind a fence of razor wire. His son seems to be quite attached to his father’s side; however the boy is looking off screen at something that seems to have him visibly upset, perhaps the razor wire fence! The man’s face is covered by a black hood that appears to be tied shut around his head, his hands are not bound but he is visibly being detained against his will. The angle in which the picture is taken is significant as well, while looking through the razor wire fence that contains the prisoner of war (POW), it gives the image a sense of peering through the fence, as if he were an animal at the zoo. Perhaps this was the point, to degrade the man to the point of being no better than a zoo animal, or perhaps it was purely to show that the man was being held behind the fence and there is no deeper meaning.
The image causes further confusion, as well as thought, when one notices that the boy’s shoes are off as he sits on the ground next to his father, which I fail to have an explanation for. It could be something as simple as the boy just did not want his shoes on, as he is still visibly young. Also a portion of the wire fence that is present in the foreground of the photograph is blurred to help the audience focus on the main points of the image; the POW with his son. The incarceration of the man causes further questions into the history of the photograph. The description of the picture describes it as; “An Iraqi prisoner of war tries to calm down his child.” It appeared in 2003 in The Associated Press. The Associated Press (AP) is an American news agency that collects news from across the glove, and rebroadcasts it across a variety of radio channels, newspapers, and TV shows. As a credible source, the AP enables this image to be trusted by a large number of people, increasing the amount of people the image is likely to effect.
The Associated Press gives us a short description of the image that makes us aware that the man is an Iraqi prisoner of war, but this is about as far as our knowledge of him extends. Is he an Iraqi citizen taken prisoner? Or could he be a terrorist that was detained by allied forces? Either way we cannot be sure of his race, of his physical appearance, what his emotions are, let alone even begin to understand what he is feeling at the time the photo was taken. It is apparent he was forced to leave his hood on while his son visited him; this leads me to believe that the allegations against him are very serious, or that his captors are perhaps treating him in an unfair manner. As father and son sit and embrace, the man’s face remains covered, while his son appears with a nervous and helpless demeanor about him, regardless of being embraced by his father. In my opinion this drastically adds to the mystique and obscurity of the photograph. Various questions that I fail to have an answer to occur in my mind as I inspect the image further. Some that concern the prisoner, such as why he is a prisoner in the first place, or how has his treatment has been since his capture? While yet others pertain to his son, as stated above, why are his shoes off? Another that quickly arose was why the father must wear his hood even though his son is there to visit him; it seems that this would normally be a situation where his hood could have been removed. Also, if he is required to wear that hood even when his child present, should he even be getting his picture taken?
It would be interesting to know who the photographer/The Associated Press was targeting as an audience for this image. All of the above questions ignite a series of emotions that all erupt at once upon closely viewing the image. I feel that this absolutely intentional, and was in fact a main purpose of this photograph when it was published. However I cannot feel that this was the sole purpose involved in the image, part of me thinks that it is attempting to show the questionable treatment of Iraqi prisoners of war. We are not even sure if he is a POW from this Iraq war, he could have been detained since the Persian Gulf.
The length of time the man has been detained is also something I am curious about. For his son to be visiting, I would think that he was either recently captured, or has been detained for quite some time. As well as the length of time he has been held captive, I am also curious as to who is actually detaining him. With vital information such as this left unanswered, the mind of the audience is left searching for a means to an end of the confusion. We are unaware if the man is even being detained by Allied Forces, one would think, however it is not certain. As an “Iraqi POW” he could be part of the Iraqi Police Service (IPS) or the Iraqi military helping the allies fight off the insurgents. As the man sits with his head covered with his son, I would imagine many thoughts about his life prior to incarceration racing through his head as he is held captive. I also begin to wonder if the man is crying, or showing any emotion under his hood, for all we know, he could be screaming at the top of his lungs as he clings to his child.
The image is taken with natural lighting, which adds to the dramatic effects of the situation. One main focus point of the picture is the boy attached to his father, besides the razor wire fence and the sandy ground, there is not much else going on in the photograph. Both the man and his child are placed ideally, in the center of the image, allowing for an easy assessment of the image. The location that the man and child are placed in the image is also strange; they appear to be sitting in the middle of a sandy region of terrain, with literally nothing around them but the said razor wire fence. This adds to the photograph’s obscurity in a sense that anything off camera is left to your imagination.
An image as powerful as this one always has a story behind it. With this particular photograph, as stated before, we are only aware that the man is an Iraqi POW comforting his child. Now this general description will suffice, but knowing more about the image would not have hurt. I would like to know what the photographer knew at the time the image was taken, or at least the majority of what he knows. As United States citizens we are unaware of many challenges that people throughout the rest of the world experience on a daily basis, such as unquenchable thirst and hunger. Many of us, as fortunate citizens of a powerful nation, take our lives for granted, myself included. I believe this image has absolutely helped me expand my thoughts and opinions to include people overseas, neutralize a sense of prejudice, as well as take a second to appreciate what I have.
