Brandon Wathen
Ms. Jarmoszko Creative Photography 1 September 9th Essay “Tank Man” In relation to historic events, photography has the ability to capture the most fragile or groundbreaking moments possible as they happen or have happened in the world around us. Photography has a certain way to essentially pull the essence of the moment straight from the air and give that same aura a new vigor behind a title, glass, and frame while at the same time maintaining the message, the essentials to understand the impact the image holds and the gravity behind what isn’t explained by word or action. Photographic history relates to historic points in time by capturing a point in time one will never see again. This correlation between history and photography is a prominent and important bridge between the two fields, something that binds them together. By merely taking a photograph, you are capturing a moment in our modernity; our daily lives which will someday become obscured in the flow of time just like our ancestors before us. To capture these moments in vivid, unmoving images captures the time and the life that cannot be brought to life by word alone, and thus gives massive insight into what is that historical point in time. Were it not for the initiative of photographers, many historic moments may’ve been lost forever in the sands of time. Through this association we learn about the past visually and learnedly in comparison to other time periods in which history was recorded purely by pen and paper. A prime example of an image that captures a point in time and the gravity is the picture “Tank Man” captured by photographer Jeff Widener in Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China on June 5th, 1989. (Kuo, 1) Envision the setting: It’s a summer day in Beijing, and the pro-democratic protests have been going on since the day before. Thousands of college students gathered together to protest the inhumane treatment of the Chinese people and their detestment of Chinese censorship laws that have cut off the people's right to see what their world has to offer. The military has begun to encroach on the Square and is planning to make the crowds desist whether they choose to or not. In a Communist country in China, this shouldn’t be a surprise, considering free speech isn’t technically allowed. But in the face of the fear, a man stood tall and unmoved. Unknown by all sources, unknown by all news outlets, a mysterious man stopped in front of a line of tanks that approached the square. In the face of overwhelming fear, “Tank man” as he has become to be known, stopped a group of tanks dead in their tracks. The actions of “Tank Man” are significant because in communism, sticking up for yourself is basically strictly forbidden. Communism is the political ideology in which the workers exist to support their nation unanimously and work together for a common good in comparison for individual advancement like in capitalist America. In communist nations, voting is typically expressly prohibited or is used only in a rigged for to make succession seem somewhat by the peoples doing; although by the almost absolutely ridiculous winning margins, it’s hardly believable that these elections are at all fair. Deviating from communist rhetoric was also expressly looked down upon, and was often punishable by times in labor camps or simply execution. The fact that tank man was able to push the fear of what may happen to him to the side, rather it be from vigor or simply drunken rabble-rousing, is astounding. The tank man didn’t falter or run either whenever the soldiers pulled him away from the scene are presumptively killed him. Tank man was a hero for the Chinese people and remains a symbol of solidarity and dissidence to this day in the face of the commie regime. Even till this day, rebel forums exist all over the Chinese web and exist only to destroy the communist propaganda that riddles their internet and their main tool is the photo of tank man. Tank man is a very evident example of what photography can do to capture a historic moment and bring it to life in a way that simply recounting the event couldn’t. Were it not for the photo of this man, the history of Tiananmen Square may have been forever lost in the wave of Chinese censorship the blocks it out till this day. By capturing the moment, the people here in America, in Europe, and the rest of the world, could see the struggle and the harm that was being done to the Chinese and the dangers they faced in an attempt to gain their freedom. While the Chinese still aren’t free, but while this image still exist. Anti-Communist factions will still exist and the world will be forever closer to freedom. Citation
3. Saul, Heather. "Tiananmen Square: What Happened to Tank Man?" The Independent. Independent Digital News and Media, 4 June 2014. Web. 21 Sept. 2016.
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Brandon DylanThese are my essays I've written for my Creative Photography class! Feel free to take a look and read a little. Archives
December 2016
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