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The Monday Documentary: Every Picture Tells A Story

The Documentary: Every Picture Tells A Story

Every Picture Tells A Story

BBC World Service - The Documentary, Every Picture Tells A Story

Razia Iqbal investigates the power of modern images.

"A good photograph has an emotional component, the iconic photos hit you right away and you just can't forget it." Razia Iqbal investigates the power of modern images.

The cell-phone footage of Neda Agha Soltan who was shot on a peaceful protest in Tehran in 2009. Eddie Adams's Saigon Execution photograph in 1968. The lone demonstrator with a shopping bag in front of a People's Liberation Army tank in Tiananmen Square in 1989 and the rescue of the young boy Kiki, from the rubble of Haiti's earthquake earlier this year.

Images like these take on a life of their own far beyond their original inspiration or context.

As a result, they tell us much about events, how they happened and why they mattered.

Razia Iqbal investigates how modern images affect us and why they are able to appeal to our imagination even when we are distanced from the event or the person depicted.

Listen as Razia meets the image makers and discusses the need to contemplate the still picture in the 21st Century.

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