The image the world shared

The photo has been shared hundreds if not thousands of times, showing the prime minister, dressed in a hijab, meeting Christchurch’s Muslim community a day after the Friday terror attack.

She looks forward, her brow furrowed with concern and hands clasped. She’s not speaking and doesn’t show any sign that she is about to launch into a political speech. Jacinda Ardern is simply listening.

It’s a photo that has gone around the world. Well-wishers in the United States and news networks in Asia have shared the photo, which was taken on Saturday by a city council photographer in Christchurch.

Photographer Kirk Hargreaves, a former Press journalist, was standing outside the community hall when he spotted Ardern through a window.

On Saturday, Ardern visited refugees and members of the Muslim community in Christchurch.

Tearful, she told the meeting the entire country was ‘‘united in grief’’.

‘‘This is not New Zealand. The only part of the incident we have seen over the past 24 to 36 hours that is New Zealand – is the support that you are seeing now,’’ she said.

She travelled straight to the meeting after getting off a plane from Wellington that morning.

Hargreaves followed her from the airport, and said he only got the striking image of Ardern because he was late to the meeting.

‘‘The room was too crowded to even get into.’’ So he ended up standing outside.

As soon as he got the photo, Hargreaves said he knew it would garner a reaction.

‘‘The human empathy and all those amazing human traits she’s showing in the picture, I’m glad people resonated with that,’’ he said.

Blotches of colour are strewn across the image, which he said were the result of flowers reflecting on to the window.

The mix of colour, the prime minister’s hijab and the framing of the picture led Hargreaves to call it ‘‘religious’’.

‘‘It’s a religious photo in a way, a photo of a mix of religious symbolism.

‘‘It looks like stained glass, there’s the Muslim hijab, and colours of Hindu religion. It’s a universal picture,’’ he said.

The photo, which first appeared on a city council Twitter feed, had barely any touch-ups or editing. Hargreaves says you may have missed Climate Minister James Shaw in the background.

Even Hargreaves missed him at first, sitting in the bottom left corner with his face still bruised after an alleged assault in Wellington.