Anadolu university journal of art & design cilt / volume sayi / number aralik / december 2016 issn: 2146-7692

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ANADOLU ÜNİVERSİTESİ
Photos Of Demonstration Reports
A placement of images in the Context of iconographic quotes becomes particularly clear in 
the typology of demonstration photos. Principally mass media productions often cite the visual 
and affective importance of symbolic protests in media images. As a Mick Jagger’s photograph 
from  shows,  Demonstrations - 1968 jan-jun Anti-vietnam War Protest March Carrying Their 
Banner Reading the Women Of Great Britain Plead For A Stop To The Slaughter In Vietnam  
(visual 3). We see a crowd run directly towards the camera apparently shouting slogans with a 
banner (Benjamin, 1989).
Visual 2. Firefighters raising the Flag at the WTC on September 11, 2001. Photo by Ricky Flores
Visual 3. Anti-war: Mick Jagger took part in the demonstrations at Grosvenor Square, 
London in 1968

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SANAT & TASARIM DERGİSİ
The look into practically every news magazine or newspaper shows the abundance of pho-
tographs employing this recognizable iconography. A photograph of the young Magnum pho-
tographer Ben Curtis is a model that should be mentioned here. Curtis ‘s photo was shot on 
January 29, 2011 in Cairo during the protests against the regime of Hosni Mubarak (visual 4) 
(Giannetti, 2008).
Visual 4. Egyptian anti-government protesters climb atop an Egyptian army armored personnel carrier,    
                  next to a signpost bearing the words “Down Mubarak”, in Cairo, Egypt, Saturday, Jan. 29, 2011.  
                (AP Photo/Ben Curtis).
This iconographic image pattern, acting as a symbol of protest and the abandoning of certain 
social standards, was even adopted by an advertising campaign for the company Diesel (visu-
al 5). In KesselsKramer ‘s black and white photograph, you can see a group of young people 
moving directly towards the photographer in the spirit of classical iconography of symbolic 
protests shown by mass media productions. The proximity of the camera, the gestures of the 
young people, their mouths partly open, and the many falling and oblique lines emphasize the 
dynamics of the recording and show an apparently moving event. Thus, the viewer reads this 
as an expression of protest. This imperative is ultimately the close of campaign photography 
for press images in the context of political demonstrations, as it unhesitatingly takes over the 
gestures of these protest rallies, but calls a situation on a semantic level less placed in the context 
of political protest movements or questioning social norms than rather of their affirmation with 
the prompt to respect their planet (Sullivan, 2012).

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ANADOLU ÜNİVERSİTESİ
Visual 5. This first campaign is Action! for Diesel by KesselsKramer in Amsterdam. 2002
Originally considered as separate genres of photography, advertising photography takes over 
the image pattern of press photography here. Even the sobriety and objectivity evoked by the 
black and white, which dominated press photography for decades and thus is closely connected 
to the black of printing ink and the white of newsprint’s paper, was adapted for the Diesel ad-
vertising, bearing in mind that the KesselsKramer is a representative of classic photojournalism 
and only occasionally realizes advertising jobs. Especially the slogan of the banners “Planet 
More Flowers” ironizes the semantic level of the protest conveyed by the image topos of the 
demonstration train (Alunno, 2013).
The Picture Of The “Victims‘ Suffering” In The Press
     So. there are image patterns which already serve as signs or symbols by visualizing more 
abstract contexts such as the protest against social norms, the suffering of war victims, the 
hardship of the population, the joy of winners, etc. Since the subject of suffering is particularly 
present in press photography, I would like to illustrate the image-strategic conveying of the 
population‘s suffering with further examples. As a symbol of starvation, in particular to visualize 
the famines in many African countries, starving and pain children show very often. Starving 
children in Karamoja in northeastern Uganda during the famine of 1980. The famine followed 
drought and civil disorder and resulted in the deaths of a fifth of the population in the region. 
(Visual 6) (Białostocki, 2003).

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SANAT & TASARIM DERGİSİ
Visual 6. Terry Fincher. Starving children in Karamoja in northeastern Uganda during the famine of 
                 1980. The famine followed drought and civil disorder and resulted in the deaths of a fifth of 
the population in the region.
Visual 7. A woman looks at the destruction of Haret Hreyk after the ceasefire was declared on August 
15th, 2006. ©2006 Derek Henry Flood.
The occasion of the escalating conflict in Lebanon provides the suffering of the population 
through abstracting and symbolizing patterns (Visual 7). A woman is in the foreground, with 
dark clothing, and looking at the destruction of Haret Hreyk after the truce was declared and 
the devastation in the background has become an iconographic sign of helplessness that is bo-
und to a exact location. Merely the caption indicates that she is in Beirut. This photograph from 
Lebanon follows certain image patterns that culturally learns to convey the picture of helpless-
ness and that very often give us the situations in disaster and conflict zones in a similar form. 
Through their constant repetition, these pictures have become symbols to convey concrete tes-
timonies of photography (Giannetti, 2008).

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