A quiet storm

Photojournalism is very attractive to me. Just the idea of being able to tell story through a single image makes my head spin. A powerful image can change the outcome of a war, and Vietname War is the case in point. However, it becomes less attractive nowadays when video and multimedia are dominating. Newspapers would survive only if it has a website to show additional video clips. People spend more time watching news on TV and on the net more than to read. Magazines and newspapers days are numbered. Still images, journalistic images are less and less as time passes.

So, it's quite rare to see an impact from a still image would contribute to the outcome of a historic election at these days in age. I still remember that day, it was the 19th of October, 2008. In a small hotel, of a remote town Lancaster of Pennsylvania. I was there for a wedding photo job the day before. Watching Colin Powell's endorsement of Obama interview. In the interview, Colin Powell cited to an image, a journalistic image, of a mother having her head rested on the tombstone of her son in Arlington Cemetery. It's very moving image, the whole story reveals. It's calm mood, low key picture, but to me it's quite an impact which the picture had made. It touches the viewers, Colin Powell, and vast number of people. It causes the people to take revolutionize action, to be very vocal, to make important decision. It's a quiet storm.

The picture is one in documentary series of pictures taken by Platon, published on The New Yorker.