Part of the problem is the size is a little too small for such an active image - slightly larger version
here.
There's an awful lot going on, but for all the right reasons - this is no quick unthought snapshot, although the 'tog would have undoubtedly had a sliver of a moment to nab the shot.
The two guys in the right are making calls - what has just happened? Which member of their family is dead or without an arm?
The guy walking past is shooting a glance at the destruction we can't see - but that's all it is, he's not stopping to look, and while his expression shows a little disgust, there's nothing he hasn't seen before - the guy behind him seems to be doing the same.
The guy at the left of the frame and the woman walking are just going about their daily business - the destruction & carnage is lost to them. Get on with your lives or give up now.
Despite all the rubble and remains in the background,
no-one is actively looking at it - it either doesn't interest them or there's stuff that's far worse the other way. Further back the flat complex shows signs of being lived in, despite being in what is a) clearly an obscenely dangerous place to be & b) likely having questionable structural integrity. Why would people still live in those conditions? Do they have no other choice, or do they refuse to leave?
The reflection in the car gives us a smidge of an idea of what's going on behind - the city is flattened.
Why does the front left woman in the car have a cloth to her face? The smell? Of what? Rotting flesh or raw sewrage? Or perhaps she's just plain gagging at the
sight of what she can see.
The woman looking at her phone? Did she just take a snap of the carnage, and still finds it hard to look at even on the phone screen? Or perhaps she just got a message, she isn't going to see her younger brother who lives in the lower city again... Perhaps it's an incoming call, and she dreads the news that the caller may bring.
I could go on - but I think you probably see where I'm going. This isn't a nice photo that you'd rather like on your wall, it's raw journalism that's telling a story in extreme depth & detail - and
that's what's impressive about it.
For me.
with the man himself, a couple of these kinds of 'Comps' have been won with complete and utter crap, to be truthful!
)
