Can you imagine walking down the street and having a herd of police come down pointing their guns at you? I know I would be furious because of the simple fact of me not doing anything wrong. This is what I saw in a picture taken in Ferguson, Missouri by the photographer Scott Olson posted on rollingstone.com. This image illustrates the strong anti-police theme among many people of the United States. The photographer uses the elements of symbolism, visual text, emotions, and filmic language to make his audience feel what it was like to be in Ferguson during the protest and the strong anti-police theme. 

There is one main symbol that shows the meaning of the photo and the young man’s hands being up as a sign of him surrendering, and to not shoot. This symbol I is in the photo to show there was a fear of being shot by the police because there was a young black male unarmed that was shot and killed in the same town this photo was taken. Usually the focus is the symbol itself but in this photo the man’s hands up is not the focus, the focus is on the police. The filmic language in this photo is sharp because of the police being focused on and the man with his hands up being a blur. The sharp focus on the police shows that the police are targeting young black unarmed males. That’s what the photographer is trying to get the views to see. The focus on the police overshadows the symbol of the man with his hands up.

There is one part of visual text on the mail box and it says “fuck the police” that’s the only visual text in the entire photo. These words speak loudly when you see them and observe what is going on in the photo. In Ferguson the city where this photo was shot there is a problem with the citizens protesting in the streets about the police abusing their authority. So those words show that the people are tired of the police and the police are supposed to be protecting us instead they are killing us so that is why the people have so much hate in them to “fuck the police”. The visual text is on a mail box and usually mail boxes send messages. This is ironic because the message that is being conveyed is “fuck the police”. The words on the mail box show the hatred and anger of the people towards the police.

There are several emotions that convey the feelings of the viewer and the citizen in the photo. The emotions that the viewer sees in the photo are fear, anger, control, and helplessness. If you as a viewer put yourself in that man’s shoes how would you feel if there were ten police officers with high powered military like rifles in your face? Fear is the first emotion that comes to mind because there are several cops with guns pointed at you and you are an unarmed black man just like Michael Brown. You would be scared for your life. Another emotion the photograph elicits is anger because people know how the police treat unarmed black males. Furthermore, one can see the man in the photo has no control of the situation he is in and the police have all the control because of their authority which can be seen with their numbers, guns, and body armor. The last emotion the viewer should feel is helplessness because the man can do nothing but raise his hands in the air and hope he does not get shot by the police. All these elements show how the man in the photo feels at that moment and evoke strong feelings in the viewers. 

There are lots of aspects in this photo showing filmic language such as long shot, reciprocal attention, object oriented attention, and intensity sharp. The reason the photographer used long shot was to relay his message and show the views what’s really happening. By using the long shot the viewer sees the severity of what the people face from police in living in fear of the next police killing. There are two types of attention the photographer used to show the conflict between the people in the photograph; one is reciprocal attention. In the photo the police have their eyes on the young man in front of them and the young man has his focus on the police so with both parties paying attention to each other reciprocal attention comes to mind. The second attention is object oriented because the object that is most terrifying is the gun. The viewers could imagine a gun being pointed at them and focusing not only on the police, but the gun itself. One of the main reasons that police abuse is happening nationally is because the police are so quick to use their weapon so the focus is on the weapons. Another filmic language would be the intensity of the shot the sharp view. Although there’s two parties the main focus is on the police and the background view and the young man where a blur but the police where focused on. The photographer knew what the main problem was about and he focused on it so it became a sharp view. All of these filmic languages showed what the problem was and gave it a better understanding of who the issues are with.

In this photograph the photographer showed a clear message that police are abusing their power by using several different elements to compose this photo. The first element is a symbol of the young man with his hands up; this shows how police abuse their power. Another element is visual text and throughout the entire photo there was only one form of visual text, “fuck the police,” and it went perfect with the theme of the photo by showing the hate toward the police. Emotions were another way of showing the feelings of the man in the photo and the viewers mind set towards the photo. Lastly, there was filmic language. All of these elements helped all of the viewers to learn the whole picture of black lives matter!
