The picture is powerful because it expresses a truth we know well
In the social media age, pictures have become especially symbolic. People unconditioned and unused to reading a string of sentences rely on an image to tell an entire story.
And what a story last week’s picture told: a widely circulated image of President Joseph Biden bowing down on one knee to Israeli president Rivlin’s chief of staff, Mrs. Rivka Ravitz, as Rivlin looks on like a proud elter-fetter.
It’s a prize-winning shot not because of what it tells us about the president, the other president, or even about Mrs. Ravitz.
President Rivlin, it emerged, had introduced Mrs. Ravitz by saying that she was a mother of 12, and Biden expressed admiration by bowing low and lowering his knee. That’s the picture. And it’s powerful because it expresses a truth we know well.
Create a free account to keep reading.
