Moving Black and white photos- Seea Earl

The Photos I chose, I found I am drawn to them because they show the moment right before death, or in the third one, it shows the aftermath. Photographs that I think move us the most are the ones that show human suffering, tragedy or death which is something that we never want to face so to even just look at an image is chilling.
In the first photo, Stanley Forman depict the moment in which a mother and her child face death as the building they were in, collapsed and the fire escape fell apart from underneath them. I chose this photo because of the essential irony behind the photo, in that the fire escape which was their only chance for survival from a collapsing building, is what caused their death.
James Nachtweys shows a Buddhist priest, Thich Quang Dug, in Vietnam burning himself to death as he protested the governments torture policy against priests. The photo to me is almost shown in a heroic and honorable way even though it shows a tragic moment of Thich Quang Dug burning to death. After reading more about the photo, as he burned to death, Thich never made a sound or moved showing his pain and that is clearly shown through the photograph. Thich sits in an upright position with his head high as he burned for something he believed in. It shows a tragic moment of death, however, in the same sense its moving because of his purpose and cause.
The third photo was a little hard for me to make out at first because I wasnt too sure as to what was going on. James Nachtweys captured a moment in which a mother lifts up the dead body of her child, who was a famine victim, and brings it to the grave. I wanted to post this photo because along with it brings forth so many emotions as to what it would feel like to have to carry the dead body of someone you were extremely close to--may it be the body of a child, parent or friend.
























James Nachtwey
















James Nachtwey