The statue is an example (imo ) for the sorrows, wars are conflicting on the human race.Connecting it to IRAQUI war, I think it is a generalisation of the situation, and as such, it talks aboute all of them.

Were it was photographed, is secondary to the message it convays.

Alex, you are right. I was not sure myself, as you saw.

Pnina, I agree, but it is not the where, which was the question, but the why and for whom.

The Story Of This Image.
 
I have done this image after a car bomb exploded in a civilian mid town district near a primary school ,killing fifteen young persons ,among them a 20 and 21 year old brother and sister whom they are close friends ,and school mate of my kids ,I was responded by stopping posting at the sites I usually participated in .
Just a week to ten day later  ,a mine exploded in front of a restaurant that kills two or three less than twenty young persons just in front of Mosul University ,this is to be followed the next day by another explosion in a restaurant too ,in this explosion a a twenty year old and the only son of our door to door neighbor was killed , and he was a very close friend to my kids too .
It is neither art ,nor photography as much as it is my heart agony.
I faced the situation in my own home where my kids are very sad ,crying at times ,and refuse to take their meals at other times ,and publishing condolences and portraits of their innocent friends in facebook ,and spooking of how much they are fine persons  ,in short I have a funeral in my own home for two weeks .This is not new or unprecedented event in Iraq,my kids have lost eight of their friends and they haven't reached their twenties.
Still abstinent from posting and sharing photographs , I have done an image titled (Every day is a mourning in Iraq ).
http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=17596778
And upon publishing it here at PN. and other sites(with those criminal acts described ) ,I received a mail from a close friend from Turkey ,Iraq's closest country telling me that nothing in the news what so ever about those bombing in Iraq .So I have done this image above and added to it the context ,telling those who view it ,that even the dead persons in the developed world  have some one crying for them ,no matter if it is a statue or a flesh , while the daily ,more or less ten explosions distributed all over Iraq ,with tens of innocent victims is to passed unnoticed by every one .It is neither an art ,nor photography as much as it is my real life and heart agony expressed in an image .The last friend that my kids have lost was Abdallah ,it was just three months before those criminal acts ,but this time was just infront of my door .http://photo.net/photodb/photo?photo_id=17505361I got to thank those who choose this image for POW ,may be ,and just may be some sleeping consciousnesses would be awakened from their own deep sleep.

 

If you were living Saad's life, how would you express your feelings in a photograph? While the POTW may be a universal image, I can understand why he personalized it with his title. I think Michael Chang words expressed this well. As powerful as a photograph may be, I think it still pales in comparison to the eyewitness experience. Saad's words bring much more life to the stone statue.

Any emotional experience we're going through will likely impact our photograph-making. And it's fascinating and heart-wrenching to hear what Saad is experiencing emotionally that might lead to ways he is photographing. All of this is relevant to his experience of making the photo and to some extent to what photo he takes and how he approaches it and, eventually, how it looks. At the same time, the photo is neither, IMO, representative of or illustrative of the story he's telling in words. I am much more moved by his words than the picture and am very glad for Saad and for all of us that we have an outlet for our emotions. Photographic expressions don't necessarily relate literally to the emotions that go into their making. Making a photograph, when not directly expressing what those emotions are or the narrative that's causing those emotions, can be incredibly cathartic.

To answer Stephen's initial question in the post above, it would depend. If I were just letting my emotions run, I might photograph anything and put my feelings into the work and no one might ever know where those feelings came from. If, on the other hand, I wanted to express more directly what was causing my emotions and what those emotions specifically were, and especially if I were interested in sending a message of sorts with the photo itself, I'd try hard to tell the story (even if, in part, only suggestive) in the photo, with some literalness. I have no idea how to put myself into Saad's shoes, since I've never been in the midst of such a war or any hell like it, but a documentary approach (which can convey great emotions as well) is one way to go. I might want to actually show some of the direct signs of war or death in real time.

I think a photo like Saad's here would be very effective as one in a series that did show some of the more literal signs of what was happening in his life. As it is presented here, the photo, for me, is very separated and distant from the narrative story he is telling us in words.

There is no disagreement on my part about mothers everywhere and at every step of human history mourning children lost in wars. "Where have all the soldiers gone, long time passing? Where have the all the soldiers gone, long time ago? Where have all the soldiers gone, gone to graveyards everyone. Oh, when will they ever learn? Oh when will they ever learn?" [from "Where Have All the Flowers Gone?"]

I'm just not convinced that the image we are discussing conveys this message successfully. To be sure, the lighting adds power to the figure of a grieving woman. But there's a logical leap from such a figure to a woman having lost a child in a war. If we could see more of a war-torn environment, my conclusion would be a different one.

Thanks Saad for your story behind the picture. Your photo expresses well not only your hearts agony, but the agony of mankind to horrors of war and aggressions.

This photo reflects indeed the heart agony, as Saad explained it so well in The Story Of This Image.

The difficulty I and many others seem to have is making the leap from this universal emotion to the particularities of the Iraqi everyday life and the innocent victims of the daily bombings, even after a detailed explanation.

We can’t expect the photo to stand for itself, and Wilson Hicks, the Life magazine editor, formulated this quite effectively: “The point is not whether photographs can get along without words, but whether, with words, they can perform their own function better”.

I feel that the photo and its caption fall short of “better performing” the intended function mainly because the visual context has no references to the Iraqi reality. While we are all connecting and feeling the universal emotion expressed in the image we still remain firmly anchored each in our own reality and unable to connect with the photographer’s specific reality. The caption does not bridge this gap either.

Looks like many contributors to this thread feel as Fred does, that the photo “is very separated and distant from the narrative”.

Alex, it is just a good example of a excellent photo, that comes with messages in written or oral form. The belief that a good photo should always speak for itself, is just a convention, that sometimes needs to be contradicted by examples. This is one.

"The belief that a good photo should always speak for itself, is just a convention, that sometimes needs to be contradicted by examples."

I agree with Anders on this. A good photo needn't speak for itself.

Alex and I and many others, however, aren't saying that a photo should speak for itself. We are saying that, in this case, the photo and the narrative are so distinct and distant from each other that there's a strange and ineffective disconnect between the photo and the text accompanying it.

I happen to love when photos are accompanied by text or text is accompanied by photos that deepen the experience of each or that, together, make for an enriching experience. That simply does not happen for me here.

Fred, as you have seen, we differ on this. In my view, any decent artistic expression of a weeping woman, laments for humanity.

Yes, we differ on that.

What I was talking about in my last post was the belief that a photo should speak for itself. No such belief is being suggested by Alex or by me.

As none of us suggest that a photo should speak for itself, no reason to search for disagreements.
Where we differ is our appreciation of how the "text" (which certainly could be better formulated) and this particular photo fit together. I can weep with the woman on the hundreds of thousands of people in Iraq who died because of a folly. I don't find it that difficult, in fact. You could just as well make the reference to the killed in Vietnam, Afghanistan or Syria and the photo would still be fulfilling its mission of mourning.

The atmosphere of Pere Lachais has little in common with brutality of modern wars and with caption of this photo. In 19th century the target was dressed in uniform. So I visit Chopin there and sorry but I do not think about Iraq.

Excellent photograph and message.  Regards,

And the slaughter goes on. Just this morning or yesterday. Hope I don't offend you for writing the following:

 

Suppose Bush had not invaded Iraq...would Iraq have followed Syria and gone into a civil war?

 

Of course there are ones to cry.  Who would not be empathetic I don't not understand those people.

Meir ,we are in a real civil war since the first day devilish Bush have invaded Iraq,this very week five persons have been assassinated by unknown groups in a single street over a week period ,not to mention the the mines and carbombs that happens in other parts of the city ,Mosul .

What I meant by my post ,the western countries have inflicted the change in Iraq,started the civil war ,then they not only withdrawn from Iraq,but have forgotten it ,.

The occupation were either a stupid ,miscalculated ,and an ignorant occupation,or a ingeniously satanic occupation and consequences to let the country ,the whole country to go downhill by its own people .

 

The connection with Iraq is not clear to me except that this is mourning statuary. Why not Syria or CAR? I am a big fan of depressing funereal statuary, so I like the image, although I think it's bang-slap-in-the-center placement is a little unimaginative.

Saad: This photograph stirs very deep emotions. It illustrates such despair, and sorrow, for which we, here in the USA, have such a limited knowledge of. It's one of those images that is so hard to look at, and yet you can't take your eyes off of it. Take Care. Paul

Thank you for the visit and the comment, the time I post this image was very fine regarding what we have faced later, ISIS .

Now we are poorer with destructed city, no services including medical, more orphans and widows, and even without future with our high ranked corrupted government, right now those who elected this government are demonstrated against it in the middle and south of Iraq now for more than one week with so many fatalities.

Thank you again.

A very powerful image, masterfully underexposed, giving it a realistic, and also imaginable, sad reality. Sad world.....and all for idiosyncratic and religious beliefs. What a waste of human creative potential to work for all to have the basic nourishment, a dignified abode, and water to drink and wash. Your image transcends the basic photography elements and transforms that into a painful reality. The expression you captured so magnificently somber and sad, strongly impresses me and I must place it among my favorites. An exceptional piece of work. My sincere respects. DG

Thank you so much dear Daniel, greatly appreciated.