German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Instagram account is not one you’d normally associate with a viral photo, but these are strange times we’re living in.
Normally, a photo of talking heads at a meeting is about as boring as it gets. The key, as every photojournalist assigned to cover one of these knows, is to watch for interesting facial expressions and body language. In that regard, official German Government Photographer Jesco Denzel did an amazing job capturing the sentiments of the officials involved in the G7 summit in Canada. Check out the photo:
The photo’s interpretation could depend on which side you’re on: on one hand, the leaders of six industrialized nations are staring down a seemingly intransigent U.S. president and on the other hand, President Trump could be seen as showing strength in the face of long odds against his recent trade moves.
While the photo posted by the German government was easily the strongest of the bunch, there were a few other interpretations of events. Here’s one from the French President Emmanuel Macron:
And the one from the United States:
The other two photos also show how important having a trained photographer is to document events, historic or not. Denzel’s photo was head and shoulders above the others posted, and sadly, most sources didn’t properly credit him (including the U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, who credited Merkel’s spokesperson). You can see more of Denzel’s work here.
What do you think of the photo that was posted by Merkel? What’s your interpretation? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Lead image by 内閣官房内閣広報室, used under Creative Commons.
Agreed. But when forced to decide between competing products, barring any obvious advantage of one over the other, any bias will serve. This is mine.
Meanwhile Merkel is letting her own country fall to infiltrators. Trump is trying to even the playing field, why are import taxes on American goods so high in our Allied countries?
all terrorists are welcome, i mean refugees,. there are so many murders, terror attacks etc it doesn't even hit the news anymore. same goes for every other European country. even the EU admits it got out of control. next decade the war in the middle east is shifting to the EU and it has already begun.
I was just talking to a co-worker of mine that's from Germany originally, he said he goes home every year to visit his family and he can see it degrading more an more each time he visits.
The news covers that stuff up so they aren't painted as the bad guys, they want to be "accepting" of all cultures. Turn a blind eye and it will eventually go away right? Of course our boys (and girls) will eventually have to go in and clean that hellacious mess up to help our weak allied leaders regain control of their countries.
I'm so happy I get to see everyone's political opinions! *insert sad trombone here
"All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth." -Richard Avedon
This entire comment section is a total train wreck. Grab your popcorn.
Reminds me a lot of this very famous photo from the civil rights era. At face value, it looks horrible. But if you actually study what was going on at the time, you realize the photo doesn't quite represent what many "want it to". Still very powerful, but you need more than a photograph to interpret what's actually going on.
Here's the wikipedia page of the photographer showing his iconic image: https://bit.ly/2mEi5rb
Heinrich Hoffmann could not have made a better photo.
Who posed them? They look like bowling pins waiting for a hit.