The photo below shows a woman rushing home after a day of shopping. She has on a normal outfit and is carrying shopping bags, including one from American jean brand Wrangler. However, the scene behind her is anything but normal. She is running down the street, a look of fear on her face as she passes signs of destruction. This photo was taken during the Bosnian war, when Bosnians, Serbians, and Croats fought over the country in the early 1990s.
Source-The Atlantic
This picture serves to put forth an argument against the Bosnian war. The look of fear on her face as she runs down a street known as “Sniper Alley” evokes sympathy in the viewer, making them question her fate. Although she wasn’t hurt the day the picture was taken, what happened to her the next day or the next week? The normalcy of the woman’s clothing and bags allows viewers to empathize with her, possibly imagining themselves in that situation. Juxtaposed against the backdrop of a decaying city, the normalcy emphasizes the photo’s argument that the war was negatively impacting Bosnian’s daily lives and that it should be ended.
Another thing that stands out to me about the photo was that she is the only person in it. The street was once filled with shops and businesses, meaning it was likely fairly busy most of the time. However, in the picture, it is completely deserted, lined only by rubble. This element of the picture invites the reader to question which came first– the abandonment of the street or the snipers that line it?
Another notable element of the photo is the lack of blood or violence. In the Atlantic’s collection, many of the pictures showed images of war like guns, tanks, burning buildings, or worse. However, outside of the picture’s caption that denotes the nickname of the street as “Sniper Alley,” there are no outright images of war in the photograph. This serves to make the message all the more powerful as the negative effects of the war are shown to be not just physical but mental and emotional as well.
Overall, the image puts forth an argument against the Bosnian war by juxtaposing a single woman’s seemingly normal shopping trip with the look of fear on her face and the destruction in the background of the image.
I love this image. If you hadn’t mentioned that it was taken in “Sniper Alley” I would not have known this was taken during the war. I agree that this photo evokes a strong sense of empathy from viewers; usually, the most effective photographs have the power to create an emotional response from the audience.
This image is cool in the sense that from originally looking at this picture, I would not have been able to guess this was in the middle of war. Seeing her running and the look of terror on her face was odd seeing that she was carrying two handfuls of shopping bags. This photo speaks loud in seeing the destruction behind her combined with the expression on her face.