I was reflecting, as were many people, on the Tiananmen massacre this morning, especially what I think of as one of the most powerful images of all time, a lone man bravely standing against tanks. I discovered on the New York Times’ Lens Blog another photograph that was taken just moments earlier, from a different angle and which only now has been released. It offers a completely different perspective on the event.

This new image is taken at ground level and the this perspective alters our take on the event remarkably.  It is a brilliant example of just how much framing and perspective mean for a photograph.

The new view provides a whole new understanding of “tank man.” It does not make him less heroic, and in fact accentuates his extraordinary action. It puts the event on a human scale, magnifying tank man by making him human. And, yet, without the classic image, the full view of the scene, I am not sure that this moment would ever have been comprehensible. For that matter, without that first image, I am not sure that we could have appreciated the full magnitude of the moment. Perspective matters; it matters in ways not easily conveyed in words, but it matters.  On this new image, read Behind the Scenes: A New Angle on History – Lens Blog – NYTimes.com. For the first entry, see Behind the Scenes: Tank Man of Tiananmen–NYTIMES.

To see video (though altered by the overlay of popular music), see http://www.metacafe.com/watch/1723347/the_tank_man_of_tiananmen_square/ or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV-tk8CrqCQ.