Plastic Flowers and The Bomb Crater-

On Time.com I discovered an image that adds to its accompanying article as well as the website as a whole by giving illustrative power to both. The article is about former Iraqi Baathists that crossed over into Syria during the Iraqi civil war and after becoming a part of the social fabric in Damascus, have now become the subject of an "escalating" dispute between the governments of Iraq and Syria which involves suicide bombers and stern claims of harboring fugitives.

The picture quite poignantly shows the huge size of a bomb crater outside a ministry building in Baghdad as well as a few citizens starting to stream plastic flowers along its massive rim. This picture adds to the website by giving it credence as a foreign news bureau and it gives the article's content immediacy and weight and also makes me want to explore the rest of the site. The obvious contrast between the fake flowers and the vestiges of the violent act is powerful in itself.