"Making Her Stand" Photo Analysis Essay

A picture is worth a thousand words. This saying has remained true for a long time. Throughout history, iconic images have represented anything from triumphs to tragedies, to historical events and everyday life. Iconic images are everlasting and have an overwhelming lasting impact on the world we live in. How does one define an iconic image? Different researchers have made efforts to do so, and today I will be focusing on the model proposed by  Robert Hariman and John Louis Lucaites, as they have done extensive studies to define the term and its applications on various iconic photographs. 

The "Making Her Stand" (2016) photograph is an iconic image that is able to represent and signify a time in United States history that will be looked back on for a long time. It is a photo of a black woman, Iesha Evans,, standing powerfully and peacefully, at a Black Lives Matter protest facing an intimidating row of police officers dressed head to toe in riot gear. The Black Lives Matter movement was an extremely crucial and pivotal time, largely impacted by the media and iconic images and focused largely on identity and stereotypes, and how racial judgment and prejudices affected black Americans' lives day to day. This photograph signifies the importance of iconic images, and how these photos can inspire those who identify with them and impact society and culture surrounding it. Connecting identity and racial stereotypes to this photo is crucial to correctly unpack the prominence and context of this photo, and how it was able to represent a side of the Black Lives Matter protests in a very bold way, with no words at all.

In Visual Rhetoric, Photojournalism, and Democratic Public Culture, Hariman and Lucaites hoped to accurately explain the role that iconic photographs play in American liberal-democratic public culture.. By their definition, iconic photographs are photographic images produced in print, electronic, or digital media that are (1) recognized by everyone within a public culture, (2) understood to be representations of historically significant event, (3) objects of strong emotional identification or response, and (4) regularly reproduced or copied across a range of media, genres and topics. (Hariman, Lucaites, 37) 

Looking deeper into the “Making Her Stand” photograph, I will be applying each component of Hariman and Lucraites definition of an iconic image to the photograph. Firstly, their definition says the photo must be recognized by everyone within a public culture. This ideal is difficult to measure, but means that the photo would be recognizable by everyone in surrounding society. I believe this photo fits that characteristic. This photo, first released and photographed in 2016, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, was the result of a series of unfortunate and tragic events in the US. Police shootings of Philandro Castile and Alton Sterling led to a series of intense protests against police brutality and unjust treatment of Black Americans and called for change. After the release of this photograph, the photo quickly spread across media outlets, social media apps like Twitter and Instagram, and quickly became a symbol for the Black Lives Matter movement. Even those who were against the Black Lives Matter protests saw this photo, and interpreted and reviewed it in their own point of view. Widely viewed, shared, saved, and sent, this photo made its impact on everyone following the protests in the United States in 2016, and didn’t end there. It continues to be used as a symbol of representation for the Black Lives Matter movement currently, especially after the 2020 protests and as the movement continues on to this day.

The second characteristic within Hariman and Lucaites’ definition of an iconic image is the photo is understood to be representations of historically significant event. This photo does an incredible job of doing so. This protest, organized by the Black Lives Matter civil rights group took place days after police killed Alton Sterling, 37, in Baton Rouge. A video showed two white police officers holding him down and shooting him. He died of gunshot wounds of to the chest and the back. Police said they had received a report an armed man was making threats. This incident was not the only event of death by the hands of police. This event only continued to heighten the tension, and continue to upset and anger Americans. A disproportionate amount of Black Americans are killed by policed brutality every year. Over a 40-year study period (1980-2019), Black Americans were estimated to be 3.5 times more likely to die from police violence than white Americans. (https://www.healthdata.org/news-release/lancet-more-half-police-killings-usa-are-unreported-and-black-americans-are-most-likely) This debate of police brutality within the country and the Black Lives Matter movement continues today and contains multiple huge historic events for the United States.

The third characteristic found in iconic images according to Hariman and Lucaites is the photo objects of strong emotional identification or response. The “Making Her Stand” photo does just that. The photo elicits many emotions and inspired many during a dark time of protest and policy brutality at the hands of Black Americans. Jonathan Bachman, the photographer of the image, was there at the protests when he looked over and snapped this photo of the exchange between the woman and police. "I feel very humble to capture an image that tells the story of what has been happening here in Baton Rouge. The woman did not show any aggression toward the police. I feel it is very representative of the peaceful demonstrations that have taken place here. People are very angry and have gone through a tremendous amount of pain; but they have not turned to violence." said Bachman in response to taking the image. Like Bachman said, Black Americans were hurting during this time, and in a lot of pain. And unfortunately for many, mourning the loss of family members to those who are sworn to protect us. This photo symbolized for many making a stand against all this pain and injustices and doing so powerfully yet peacefully. Her posture in the photograph is still, upright, proud, and brave. In contrast to the police scattered positions and movement, she remains still. This photo acted as a significant symbol for Black Americans fighting back against unjust treatment from police, prejudices and stereotypes often stuck with being black in America.

   The last and fourth characteristic found within iconic images is it is regularly reproduced or copied across a range of media, genres and topics. This characteristic also applies to the “Making Her Stand” photograph as well. This photo quickly spread across different blogs, media coverage outlets, and social media. If you search for the photograph online, dozens of articles pop up discussing the prominence and background story to this photo. It becomes very clear how many people cared about this photograph. If searching twitter, countless tweets of this photo, even recently this year have been tweeting as people remember the murder of Alton Sterling. This photo has been texted, shared, tweeted, sent, and analyzed by our country time and time again, and it never gets old. The photograph of Iesha Evans is timeless, and will be reproduced, copied and shared forever.

In conclusion, iconic images impact our ever changing world greatly, and become bookmarks for historic times and events that shape our society and change our lives. Having images to look back on is an ultimate privilege, to be able to look directly into the eyes of a moment in history, and be able to attempt to feel every emotion and feeling the photographer did. Sometimes, a photograph can speak more than words can. This was definitely done with the “Making Her Stand” photograph of Iesha Evans. This image is recognizable by many, represents a historical event in history, objects strong emotional response, and was consistently and regularly copied and reproduced across a range of media.