The Tank Man

“The Tank Man” as most call it a picture of a young and since unidentified Chinese man that in the aftermath of the Tiananmen square incident where the Chinese army came in to quench the masses of groups protesting using military force and means, stands in front of a column of tanks advancing from Tiananmen square. Any photographer could tell you how the picture was balanced out a stack of three tanks, painted lines on the road emphasizing the direction of the photo, leading to the one man standing in front of the tanks; wearing plain white shirt and black pants, carrying his grocery bag as if he was heading on home and decided it might be a great idea to take a few and protest with everyone else. The photo lacks a face making the photo less about the man himself but what his actions represent for everyone, this photo takes becomes a symbol taking on the drive all the protesters have to fight against the Chinese government’s oppression.

There were many photographers looking at the same scene of the same man facing the same tanks but the photo that took on most of the media was that of Charlie Cole who was in Beijing June 5, 1989 currently working for Newsweek magazine. He and many other photographers from countries all around the world are heading to Beijing to capture the protests from the Chinese student. It’s hard to classify the “Genre” this photo would be classified as being a photo for news coverage. It would most likely be somewhere in the humanism or naturalism field.

The pictures associated with Tiananmen square are all taken on June 5th 1989 and the days prior to the photo students from the collages local and other groups that came to Tiananmen to voice their anger or complaints towards the government had been suppressed by the Chinese military without mercy taking the life of hundreds of innocent people along with the protesters death tolls in the hundred and wounded in the thousands. The current government was a communist government currently...