Why We No Longer Have to See the Thing We’re Looking At

The photographer, Mr. Bianchi, deserves a bow as this is one clever news photo. What’s brilliant about it is that it’s as audacious and unique as it is inevitable. I say inevitable because we’re growing so used to channeling the world through our own devices, it was only a matter of time before someone in the news sphere stipulated that the decisive subject matter was not necessary to see directly because, well… it’s beside the point. What so impressive about this example, though, is that Mr. Bianchi takes the most luminous religious and diplomatic figure in the world and sticks a big hand in his face. (That, without a very good alternative view.)

Makes you wonder what Cartier-Bresson would have had to say.

(photo: Alessandro Bianchi/Reuters. caption: Pope Francis is pictured by mobile phones at a special audience for Vatican employees and their families at the Paul VI’s hall at the Vatican December 22, 2014.)