Battle of Chancellorsville

http://www.nps.gov/archive/frsp/chist.htm

Considered General Lee's greatest victory, the Battle of Chancellorsville was a bloody and vicious fiend that devoured casualties left and right. This picture captures the aftermath using a direct approach of multiple soldiers dead in a ditch. Although it's original intention was not meant to be expressive, the content of this documentary photograph details an unnatural slaughter in a natural landscape. What seems odd in this photograph is although the scene is bloody extrails of war, the lines found within the photograph seem unusually linear and orderly. The first and foremost lines that are focused upon when looking at this photograph would be the those of the parallel lines formed by the stone wall and the ditch. (What's seemingly ironic with the presence of the stone wall and the dead soldiers in the ditch is that this battle in particular marks the death of the legendary general "Stonewall" Jackson. Ironic? I'd say so!) The next lines that are focused upon would be those formed by the muskets. It appears that they aren't all necessarily perpendicular to the wall, but somehow they all form a pattern. Again, the unusual existence of order in a time of mayhem. The depth that is created by the continuous ditch and wall give this image space definition. This marks the ongoing existence of evil in war. What's most notable besides the lines and space in this photo, however, would definitely have to be the lighting. The central focus of the image contrasts greatly with the rest of the surroundings. The trees in the background are seen merely as a contour, submersed in black. However, the central scene of the ditch and dead bodies is engulfed in light from the front-most angle all the way until the trees devour the scene. Clearly, through the photographic strategies used, the author of this image portrays the ever-wavering uncertainty of war and tragedy of aftermath.