
A picture is worth a thousand words. However, the real question is what are the words the picture is trying to say. To understand what a photo means you first have to understand the elements the creator chose to use. The photo I chose to use is from the Women’s Rights Movement in England. The meaning of the movement is apparent, to get more rights for women, but what does this picture in particular mean? Phillip Kester uses line, spacing, and color to express the idea that women can come together and work with one another to make changes in the daily lives of everyone around them. 

In this photo there is a line of women walking down a street full of people. All those in the march are wearing white while all the others are wearing black. This shows the separation between those in the movement and those who are not. Having background knowledge of the photo helps, but with the contrasting colors it is easy to see the separation of the people. There has always been and always will be a separation between women and men. It is not necessarily always a bad thing. During the time of this photo women were fighting for their equal rights as humans. They wanted the ability to vote, women not being able to vote is an example as to why the separation was bad. The photo is also completely black and white, while this was mainly because that was the only kind of cameras they had, I think it can also helps highlight the idea that the world is separated as man and woman. Luckily these women started a movement to better the lives of women for the rest of time. There are still things that women have to fight for, but these women started it all. 

The line of those in white continues past the end of the picture. The movement is very organized and the photo shows the power this movement has on the people of the world. The line of women helps enforce the idea of women working together for a common cause. It is obvious that these women planned and worked very hard on gaining support for this cause. The line seems to be never ending, it goes on a lot further than the picture can get in one shot. You can’t see the beginning or the end of the line. This could also allude to the idea that the starting point of this movement is not really known. Also there is no end of the line in sight, a lot like the fact that at the time the photo was taken, there was no end to this revolution in sight. Even though these women didn’t know if what they were doing was actually going to make a difference, they did it anyway. 

The women are very close to one another, they don’t seem to care where the woman beside them is from. They only care that they are all women and they support one another. You can see that there is not a lot of space between each woman. Personally I think this is part of the problem with the Women’s Rights Movement today. The women in the movement are too focused on the difference between them and those around them. I feel that if today’s women were closer today the movement would be able to get a lot more done. Also there are those who are separated from the match, the people who aren’t stopping to look at it. Their dismissive demeanor also show how little some people cared about the movement as a whole. While Kester didn’t plan any of this, he did capture it all in one photo. Spacing is not just about the spacing in the photo, but also the space between the genders. In this photo Kester shows the space between men and women on the street, but it can also show the space between men and women’s rights. Kester did an amazing job at capturing the meaning of this match in just one photo. 

The women in this photo probably never expected for women to come as far as they have. All the women in the picture wanted was the right to vote, but women have so much more. Women can now go to school and hold jobs that before only men could. If the women in this photo had never started this movement we would not be where we are today. The movement also would not have been able to reach as many people as it did if people like Kester were not there to capture the moment for those who could not be there. I believe that pictures of the protest are just as powerful as the actual protest. 

In conclusion, a picture really is worth a thousand words. It is easy for people to just look at a picture for it’s simple meaning. However, it is important to use things like color, line and spacing to help decipher the deeper meaning. Phillip Kester used all of the elements plus more to show us that women can unite under a common cause. Women fought for years for their basic human rights and this picture was taken at the start of it all. Thankfully Kester saw this as an opportunity to show the hard work of the women and took the photo. This photo is worth so much more than a thousand words; it is worth millions. This photo along with many others helped spark the Women’s Rights Movement in the United States. Due to the march  that you see in this photo, and many others like it, women are closer now to equality than they have ever been. Sometimes humans need to be show things in a picture to fully grasp what the problem is. Thankfully Kester provided one of those photographs. 
