Photographers have quick reflexes, fast response time and an ability to survey a room in record time. After years of maximizing moments, evaluative powers are speedier than the average person. Our industry may be tanking, but skills are with us forever!
Today’s happy nugget? Reuters photographer Kevin Lamarque’s brilliant response to the Baghdad shoe incident. As a photo editor, content trumps composition when a simple image has so much to say.
President Bush ducks after a man threw a shoe at him during a joint statement with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in Baghdad, December 14, 2008. Photo by Kevin Lamarque/REUTERS
I can ruminate on what the responses of President Bush and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki mean for several minutes. You can interpret so much or so little from this one picture: Bush has lightening reflexes; al-Maliki sees death every day so what with a shoe; U.S. citizens are skiddish; Iraqis are non-pulsed; Bush has excellent secret service crisis-response training; al-Maliki may be a firm believer in fate and his time is not now. We haven’t even covered the impact of war from the U.S. and Iraqi standpoint. I love this image. So basic yet so complex.
So thank you Kevin for being speedy with the shutter.
-Sarah Evans
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