For the readers of this essay, the photograph titled Migrant Mother is probably quite familiar. It is an image that stands for hardship, destitution, and uncertainty. It is, in fact, an iconic image – a widely recognizable visual that represents a larger event. That photograph has come to symbolize the American Great Depression, an economic crisis from the late 1920s through the 1930s that devastated the population and witnessed soaring unemployment and poverty. In the photograph by Dorothea Lange, we behold a woman, staring into the distance, as if questioning how she will provide for the children we see nestled into her.
Dorothea Lange’s 'Migrant Mother,' 1936, Nipomo, CA, Library of Congress, for US government.
It is no accident that Migrant Mother has become so well known. The specifics of its publication history helped it along, and so does the fact that it presents a visual trope: the mother and child (or children). This category of imagery exists across cultures, artistic traditions, and throughout millennia, from Ancient Egyptian depictions to Christian iconography to Hindu portrayals of Parvati and Ganesha; from sculpture to painting to photography, and more.
Left to right: Unknown author, 'Parvati and Ganesha', 1940s-1950; Michelangelo’s 'Pietà,' 1498-1499, St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, photo by Stanislav Traykov; Mary Cassatt’s 'Mother and Child,' 1890, Wichita Art Museum, Kansas.
That visual motif, so much of the time, isn’t solely thematic; it plays out compositionally, too. In this ilk of imagery, the mother is frequently positioned with her head higher than the child or children she encircles. In addition to Parvati and Ganesha, think of Raphael’s Madonna and Child, where the Virgin Mary holds a baby Jesus on her lap; or Michelangelo’s La Pietà, a statue, again of the Virgin, this time cradling her deceased adult son; or Mary Cassatt’s many paintings of mother and baby from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
These few examples help us grasp that there is a long history to visual narratives, and it doesn’t take formal study of art to be influenced by repeated visual themes. We are unconsciously trained to recognize and respond to such images.
As we see in Lange’s photograph, the concerned mother forms the pinnacle of the scene, with her young children burrowing into her: a visual, compositional echo of what has come before. It is an image that speaks at an emotional level and, in this case, humanizes as well as individualizes a national economic panic and the suffering of millions. In short, tropes powerfully allow for the quick apprehension of a scene: universally, mothers love and strive to protect their children.
But an iconic image, and the tropes that we see again and again, also force us to confront the limitations of the visual form.
A photograph like Migrant Mother may engender an emotional reaction and can quickly reference a long-ago moment in history, but, over time, iconic images rarely carry with them the nuance of a situation. How many people know the name of the photographer behind Migrant Mother? How many know the date it was taken? (1936) How many know the details of where it was taken and what was going on in California at that moment? And who else, beyond the pictured woman, was affected? A single photograph certainly cannot be expected to show us all detail, but recognizing that constraint is vital. In the US Great Depression context, African Americans were the first to lose jobs due to the economic collapse, experiencing the highest rates of unemployment, in a nation where historical racism had already positioned such individuals in lower-paying professions. This of course is not evident in the Lange image that, more than any other photo from the contemporaneous American landscape, has come to define that moment in US history.
In that sense, trope images often elide important information. In turn – and with Lange as an effective foundation, focusing our attention on photography – we should ask: What might the above observations teach us about who creates visual documentation or determines which photographs matter? And, for the purposes of this essay, what concerns might this raise for us about how contests and winners are part of this equation?
It is with excitement and a bit of trepidation that I agreed to write this essay on visual tropes and what this means for a broad understanding of history. I love photography, especially documentary and journalistic photography. When produced ethically, it serves a vital role: bearing witness, creating visual evidence, communicating with broad audiences, keeping us informed by allowing us to see what we may otherwise have no access to. The profession of photojournalism matters enormously.
But I cannot write this essay without addressing the limitations of photographs, and even the negative consequences of how imagery might exist in the world, once it leaves the camera and begins its life in the public eye.
As the Lange example demonstrates, the single photo excludes much of the social, political, and historical context. In choosing select images to win awards, as World Press Photo has done since 1955, we honor the important work of photojournalists and reward their immense talent and ingenuity; and at this moment in history, we can also consider what these select images mean for how the world has been documented in pictures, who has been given recognition, and what their viewpoint does (or does not) show us. Broadly speaking, we are compelled to consider anew the recurring perspectives, the tropes, that have not only been given dominance but which have shaped the record of history and informed a collective consciousness.
The World Press Photo of the Year winners represent some of the most influential images from the past 70 years of photographic history. They include:
Left to right, top to bottom: Eddie Adams, 1969 Contest; Charlie Cole, 1990 Contest; Mohammed Salem, 2024 Contest.
The overwhelming majority of World Press Photo of the Year awardees have been men. As photographers, their national and geographic diversities tip toward the Global North, though their winning images depict historic events from around the world: Turkey, Vietnam, Chile, Niger, Lebanon, the United States, Cambodia, Uganda, China, and beyond. This means that, at least historically, the winners have comprised a subset that does not reflect an equitable representation of the world being documented.
The winning World Press Photo Contest images, across the spectrum of contest categories, show us that visual tropes are present. Those tropes include: an emphasis on conflict, for instance, fire, death, or rubble; the “weeping woman”; the “male savior”; and more. The repetition of these kinds of images teaches us that history and human actions repeat: wars involve horrific destruction and loss of life; women mourn when their children die; and men heroically save others. But it also illustrates that we have become accustomed to those themes, perhaps even expect them to be connected to certain press narratives, and repeatedly reward those visuals. It is a cycle that recurs, potentially if unintentionally incentivizing the creation or submission to contests of images we have seen before. In turn, this repetition ossifies the visual tropes that define particular news stories, and by extension, informs how we come to understand the world.
This cyclical pattern means that we get used to certain perspectives and images. For example, take the weeping woman trope. Such photographs are emotional, even heartbreaking; they depict potent anguish and loss. They are incredibly powerful. In this moment (early 2025), when more than a trillion photos are made on a yearly basis, such weeping women images still, at times, have the ability to cut through the visual noise and command attention. That is no small feat.
But women also emit strength, fortitude, dominance, and leadership. Those images are not nearly so common in the World Press Photo archives as is the weeping woman.
Left to right, top to bottom: Horst Fass, 1970 Contest; Eric Bouvet, 1990 Contest; Horcine Zaourar, 1998 Contest; Mohammed Badra, 2018 Contest.
Meanwhile, certain regions or populations appear, historically, to be defined by prescriptive visuals. For instance, from broad swaths of Africa, the winning World Press Photo Contest images have shown us terror, conflict, suffering, and pain. No photo has been staged. Each image depicts a moment of recorded actuality. Each acts as visual evidence. But, taken together, this photographic history shows us a continent that has, in the international collective imagination, been “written” through images that repeatedly emphasize certain and limited aspects. Celebration, joy, and resilience, among many other facets of society, seem underrepresented.
Reducing any population, whether a single country or an entire continent, to a few visual tropes, leads toward one-dimensional portrayals and misrepresentation.
But this essay doesn’t aim to criticize the important photographic work of the past 70 years. Rather, my goal is to layer and complicate one’s understanding of how images operate. Some of the tropes most associated with war, disaster, and other crisis photography do raise awareness of humanitarian catastrophes, spark discussion around global issues, and engage viewers emotionally, potentially prompting action. Visual tropes of conflict, for example, can compel us to witness the situations of victims and can powerfully elicit sympathy.
Yet we must ask: Are there negative consequences to repeatedly elevating the photographs of victimhood? Does that visual language override or eclipse agency? And what do we do with the feelings of disbelief, shock, or sympathy? Do those images propel us to confront the forces – economic, environmental, governmental, corporate – that led to the suffering? Who is responsible for the horrific injustice encapsulated, for example, by this photo?
The hand of a severely malnourished boy rests in a Catholic monk’s hand in the Karamoja region of northeastern Uganda. 1 April, 1980. Hunger has been a recurrent problem in the drought-prone region of Karamoja. The famine of 1980 was the worst in the region’s history. In less than a year, it killed around 20% of the population, including approximately half of all infants. Mike Wells, 1981 Contest.
I ask rhetorically. No photograph can do it all. That is an unreasonable ask of the medium itself and of the photographer holding the camera. But it is not unreasonable to compel us, the public, to think about such concerns, to question which images are selected into “the canon”, and to consider the long-term impact of visuals and their role in history. Moreover, it makes sense for us to think deeply about what we are seeing, how it makes us feel, and what we may want to do in response.
To be fair, there are World Press Photo winners, across the submission categories, that break from the patterns I address above. Those are amazing photos that deserve recognition. (As do the images pictured here.) But that fact doesn’t absolve us from contemplating the tremendous power of visuals – in all their incredible glory as well as their potential for harmful stereotypes. Over time, the selection of winning or iconic photos builds a narrative that may omit vital historical information. These concerns are bound up with the history of how photojournalistic images have been published, where Western media organizations and photographers often dominated the global photojournalism scene due to resources, established networks, and international exposure. This is not a criticism of any particular photographer; but it is a landscape that must be admitted, addressed, and rectified. World Press Photo, in its recent past, has done much to acknowledge and diversify this imbalance.
Participants at “Heavenly Bodies”, an underground drag ballroom event, held in a secret location during Lagos Pride, celebrate the “mother of the year” winner. Lagos, Nigeria, 21 June 2024. Members of the LGBTQI+ community in Nigeria face legal prosecution, widespread social discrimination, and physical violence. Despite all risks, the event was an electrifying experience, providing a vibrant space for celebration of love and free self-expression. Temiloluwa Johnson, 2025 Contest.
When Western photographers consistently receive global recognition, this contributes to a dominance of Western perspectives on global issues. In turn, this consolidates Western media as the gatekeeper of global narratives. That, without needing further explanation, is problematic; and it is my hope that this short essay, at minimum, piques interest in these vital concerns around the utterly critical work produced by photojournalists everywhere.
To adapt the ideas of the great bell hooks, an American author and social critic, photographs are not passive reflections of reality. They can actively shape perceptions of identity, power, and privilege.
The trepidation I described at the start of the essay has melded into hope – hope that, together and through conversation, we all can better understand the photography landscape, and can appreciate the important work of photojournalists while simultaneously asking tough questions around which images matter and why.
