I mean the one of Kim Jong Un on p. 18 of today's terrorflag. The new North Korean dictator, described in the caption as being 'closely escorted', looks more like a hapless bureaucrat, face blank with terror and surprise, being frogmarched off to the torture chambers for a bit of preliminary tweaking and slapping around before moving on to the electric shocks and pliers... Jaws towering over him on one side, a young Rosa Kleb on the other, a couple of his uncles in the background coming along to watch the fun too, judging by their generals' hats...
We all know of course that photos can mislead although they can't really 'lie' without faking. Broadsheet picture editors are very good at choosing the right frame from among hundreds to make some sort of subliminal point. I treasured for years a photo taken from the Times, of Tony Benn on some sort of big demo in, I suppose, the very early eighties. The camera angle had his head centred in the middle of the sunburst on a big trade union banner behind him, so that it looks like a halo. But the photo also caught him looking unusually saintly in a wimpish way, like a sickly pre-Raphaelite painting of a Christian martyr. A second before or a second afterwards everything would have been out of line and looked different. But the snap was accidentally just perfect, sort of, and the brilliant picture editor selected it.
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I saw that Korean photo and wondered what on earth was going on. He's supposed to be a president, yet he allows himself to be manhandled like that, as you say, looking as if he was being arrested.
It's a Have I Got News for You caption competition in waiting. Kim In Jug perhaps.
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I thought he looked like a puppet with his handlers other arms inserted to move him around.
He did look terrified...
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Very sad photo - Cliff Pope
