The Flower And The Bayonet Analysis

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Visual Analysis The first image: This image, The Ultimate Confrontation: The Flower and the Bayonet, was taken by French photographer Marc Riboud during the 1967 anti-Vietnam march in Washington D.C. First of all, it is not difficult to define it as a photojournalism, because Marc took it in order to record a true event and tell a news story. This one shows the anti-war activity in the National Mobilization Committee clearly, which is a historic event. At present, it still appears in some anti-war demonstrations used as an important symbol, such as the activity about against the Iraq War in London in February 2003, so it also has political significance. In addition, this image also can be seen as an artistic work. On the basis of aesthetics, it tries to express Marc’s view of war and cause people to think about the relationship of war, peace and humanity. According to The Psychology of the "Decisive Moment" (Suler, 2013), the decisive moment happened in a real life, when the visual and moral elements of people come together perfectly to express the true meaning of that circumstance. This photo, as a snapshot, was taken in a very short period of time without any deliberate design; however, it is simple but very unique and historic. From technical analysis of photography, this image follows Rule of Thirds (Matija Maleš, Adam Heđi & Mislav Grgić, 2011), which can be proved by its composition. The girl who held a flower on her hands is in one third of the horizontal, and