Courtney Witzman

ENC3315
Professor Lindee Owens
23 March, 2015
Evoking Emotion through Photos
Have you ever really thought about what makes you snatch up a magazine off the shelf
when youre standing in line at the grocery store? Chances are you dont start flipping through
Vogue because of something you read on the cover. You do it because the cover photo is visually
appealing to you. How about when youre watching the news? When the anchor begins her
report on a little girl whos gone missing, its the picture of that little girls face that will stay
with you throughout the week, not the reporters words. Images have a huge impact on our
actions and our emotions; thats why journalists and authors use them.
While a single image can be impactful on an audience, a series of photos can make even
more of statement. Together, photographers and journalists create what is called a photo essay
an article that [typically] has more images than words. The words in any photo essay are
necessary to the piece and can definitely make an impact on a reader, however the pictures are
what the rhetor use in order to bring out emotions positive or negative in an audience that the
text alone could not. The images presented in photo essays use color and specific objects to
evoke a deeper emotional connection to the piece than the reader would have if simply reading a
written article.

Confronting Mexicos Latest Cruel Massacre is a photo essay written by Olivier

Laurent and photographed by Sebastian Liste and published in TIME Magazine. This photo essay
was written in response to the kidnapping of 43 students by a drug gang in Mexicos Southern
Guerrero state on September 26, 2014. According to the article, The assassins incinerated their
corpses for more than 14 hours before discarding their remains into plastic bags and throwing
them in a nearby river. The intended audience for this piece is TIME Magazines typicaleveryday audience: the well-educated and well-informed. Because of their audience, TIME
would assume that the people reading this piece were up to date on the latest news, meaning that
they would have heard about the 43 students who were kidnapped by the Mexican drug cartel.
Even so, it is doubtful that TIMEs audience would have known the reaction of the
Mexican society to the kidnappings, which is what prompted Liste to take these photographs. In
the article, Liste is quoted saying,
Parents all around the country started to say, Enough. The words Vivos se los llevaron,
vivos los queremos [They were taken alive, alive we want them back] became a
national anthem. That night, the relationship between these corrupt officials and drug
cartels was made more evident than ever before, and Mexican society is tired of the
deaths and the disappearances. One thing is sure, it will now be difficult for them to
silence an entire country.
Liste took these photos in hopes of showing the desperation, anger, and restlessness that these
kidnappings brought into the Southern Guerrero society. Also, its important to take note of the
fact that all of the photos were taken in black and white which signifies gloom and automatically
prompts audiences to feel sorrowful.

The first image in Confronting Mexicos Latest Cruel Massacre (above) is captioned:
Mexicans, fed up with the country's violence and corruption, took to the streets, including
this protest in Mexico City. While this statement is informative, it does not provide nearly as
much for an audience as the picture does. Imagine if you were to only read the caption. Protests
in America rarely look like this, so it is unlikely that you would picture what is happening in the
photograph. The photo displays a large, angry mob protesting the kidnappings and demanding
change for their community. The burning torches captured in the photo symbolize consumption.
The people in the photo will think of nothing else until something is done about the drug cartel
activity in their country. Fire is also a symbol of pain. Because of the burning torches captured in
the photo, it is obvious that the Mexican community is hurt and scared over the kidnappings. In
addition to consumption and pain, the torches in this photo allude to the anger that these people
are feeling. What this image does that the caption alone cannot is bring emotion into the story.

The burning torches captured in the photo cause the audience to feel angry, consumed, and hurt
just like the mob that is pictured. This image does not only inform, it prompts the viewer to seek
justice for the 43 missing students.

In this photo, a banner of the missing students faces hangs in the main square of
Chilpancingo de los Bravo, the capital of Guerrero State. If you were to simply read this in an
article about the kidnappings, it probably wouldnt have much of an effect. Liste took this photo
to show his audience who the Mexican society was fighting for. The power behind this photo lies
in the faces captured. In his chapter titled The Rhetoric of Visual Argument, Anthony Blair
discusses the power of images. Blair states that one of the things that makes an image so
powerful is the sense of realism it conveys. Putting a face or an image to a name in any kind
of situation will evoke emotion because the image makes it seem all the more realistic. You see
the faces in this photo and it suddenly dawns on you that these people that youve been reading
about are actually real, which causes you to react in some way. Upon looking at this photo, I

personally felt heartbroken over the missing students. Whether audiences feel the need to seek
justice for these students or simply grieve over the situation, seeing the victims faces is
guaranteed to make you feel something that words cannot.

The image above pictures several chalk outlines which are meant to represent the bodies
of crime victims in Mexico. The numbers next to each outline represent the number of people
killed. Though there are only a few chalk outlines captured in this photo, the article states that
protesters drew upwards of 70,000 all around the country. Liste snapped this picture for the
shock value. Its easy to read that there were over 70,000 chalk outlines drawn all over the
Southern Guerrero state, but seeing the outlines is completely different because it puts the
number of deaths into perspective for viewers. Imagine walking through your own home town
and seeing nothing but chalk outlines drawn on the ground. Seeing something like that would
cause a person to feel frightened and unsafe. Liste knew that it would be next to impossible for
audiences to look at this picture and feel anything less than terrified for the people of Mexico.

The next photo from Confronting Mexicos Latest Cruel Massacre displays a fairly
large Mexican cemetery with an abundance of unmarked graves. The image is captioned: The
main cemetery in Chilpancingo, the capital and second-largest city of the state of Guerrero,
Mexico, where many of the victims of Mexico's drug war are buried. Seeing such a large
number of graves causes audiences to feel distraught over the deaths of the victims. The simple,
blank crosses marking each grave suggests that the victims buried in this cemetery are
unidentified. The unkempt grounds alludes to the idea that there is no groundkeeper for this
cemetery, and therefore no one watching over the graves. It is possible that other parts of the
grave yard look nicer and better kept, however Liste chose this spot intentionally to make it seem
as if these people buried here are not cared for. The unidentified bodies and the idea that no one
even cares enough to tend to the cemetery makes the audience feel as if nothing is being done for
these victims at a higher level. This idea will cause viewers to want justice for the victims of
Mexicos drug war.
The photo essay Confronting Mexicos Latest Cruel Massacre takes quite a few swings
at an audiences emotions. Liste chose to take these photographs in hopes of informing the public

of the goings-on in Mexico and to create an emotional connection between his audience and the
events happening in the country. Each photo in the essay is included for a reason. Liste took
photos of objects and scenes that he knew would be shocking and emotional to audiences. The
fact that each photo is taken in black and white lets the audience know that the photos are not to
be viewed in a positive light before they even really get a chance to take note of what is being
displayed. Liste did an excellent job of using and presenting his photos. Each image causes the
reader to have a deeper emotional connection to the story by showing them simplistic, shocking,
and emotionally charged scenes.

Works Cited
Laurent, Oliver, and Sebastian Liste. "Confronting Mexico's Latest Cruel Massacre." LightBox.
TIMES, 16 Nov. 2014. Web. 19 Mar. 2015.
<http://lightbox.time.com/2014/11/16/mexico-guerrero-student-murder/?iid=lb-galviewagn#1>.