The picture I chose to do a close reading on was taken during the Ferguson, Missouri riots. In August of 2014, an unarmed black teenager named Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer named Darren Wilson. This led to weeks of rioting because many people believed that because Brown was black, Officer Wilson felt he could shoot him even though Brown was unarmed and hadn’t physically threatened anyone. This is what really ignited the “Black Lives Matter” movement. In the picture I chose you see many policeman aiming their guns at a single African American man who is standing with his hands up. The use of contrast between the Police and the protestor and the proximity of different objects and people gives readers a glimpse at what the protestors are experiencing and how serious and scary it is for them.

Contrast between these 2 groups of people, Policeman and protestors, was a big element found in this picture. The first thing most readers notice in this is that the police are all armed with guns, masks and helmets as if they are going into war. Then you look over and see the protestor, unarmed with his hands up. This is contrasting how they appear in the picture, one being deadly and one being innocent. When most people heard about the Ferguson riots they only saw images where protestors were doing something scary or deadly to cops, causing them to appear as the deadly group in the situation, but this picture shows the opposite of that with the image of cops with guns and the protestors as the victims of excessive police brutality. Another example of contrasting these two groups is the use of color to show a difference between them. You can see in the picture that the protestor is dressed in light blue and the policeman are all dressed in a dark brown. The use of a light color on the protestor makes the reader feel as if he is friendlier and less aggressive than the cops who are in the dark colors that make them appear scary and dangerous. This again is trying to show that even though the media is only showing these dangerous protestors that are threatening the lives of policeman, it can be the other way around where the cops are threatening to take lives of protestors that are trying to peacefully fight for a cause they believe in. Another time you see color contrasting between the two is in the background. If you look at the protestor, behind him is a black fence. To me, that seems to be representing prison bars which is where he is likely going to be put after being arrested by these cops. Then you look behind the police and you see bright colors and open space. When you look at this picture you see two groups, the aggressive group of cops and the peaceful protestor. However once the dust settles, the peaceful protestor is the likely to be in jail for his protest and the police get to go live their lives and do whatever they want to do which is unfair.

Another element used in this image is the proximity of different objects and people. The first thing every person notices here Is the police. They are in the middle of the image and are very clear and focused on. The photographer focused on them because they look very threatening here which is what people don’t usually see with pictures of policeman. Along with that there is a USPS collection box with graffiti saying “Fuck the Cops.” This adds to the bad of police that this picture wants you to see. They put this right next to the policeman so that they appear as an enemy of protestors. Another thing you see is that the protestor is very off to the side and blurry. This is because the focus of this image is not to show how innocent the protestors or Ferguson are but to emphasize the wrong-doing of the police. By putting less focus on the protestor the reader is able to understand what is going on while having a main focus on the cops. This photo is trying to also give you a first-hand look at what it may feel like to be a protestor in this situation. With all of the focus on the police you feel as if they all have their guns pointed at you which obviously no person wants to have. Most of the people in Ferguson who wanted to protest this wrongful killing of a young teenager had their lives threatened by cops, whether it be a gun pointed straight at them or some other tactic used by police to scare or disperse the riots.

Nowadays the media controls a lot of what is seen by everyone. They don’t usually show two sides of a story so a lot of people didn’t see an image like this where the cops looked like they were the threat, they only saw the awful things that some of the people of Ferguson did. This picture does an amazing job at showing the other side of this event by using different visual elements like contrast and proximity to prove that the riots of Ferguson were not just a bunch of thugs destroying everything they saw, but a group of people who are just trying to protest a cause that they care about.