Instantly Iconic

HOW JONATHAN BACHMAN’S PHOTO WENT VIRAL AND BECAME ONE OF THE MOST MEMORABLE IMAGES OF 2016.

- Chuck DeLaney

EXPERTS ESTIMATE THAT OVER one trillion photographs are taken each year. Only a tiny fraction of them rise to the level of greatness and far fewer merit being called “iconic.” To capture an extraordinary photograph all the necessary elements have to come together—at least for an instant—and the photographer has to be in just the rightplace to record it.

Jonathan Bachman’s remarkable photograph of a lone woman the instant before her arrest for obstructing traffic during protests in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, is a case in point. The protest was sparked by the killing of Alton Sterling by Baton Rouge police a few days earlier last July.

Bachman’s photo circled the globe within hours after he uploaded it to Reuters, who had assigned him to cover the protests. The photo captures an individual’s peaceful civil disobedience while facing a vastly superior force.

FAMOUS PREDECESSOR 

The image has been compared to the “Tank Man” photo taken in Tiananmen Square during the 1989 Beijing uprising. But the “Tank Man” stood in front of the long line of tanks for some time and many photographers captured the image. While an online search shows other photos of the same woman’s arrest, only Bachman’s combines the elements in a way that projects a larger theme—the choice of an individual to stand up in protest over a series of tragic events that have roiled an entire nation.