Man in a moment: Photo editors on the shots that encapsulate modern masculinity

A perfectly-observed, serendipitously-timed reportage photograph has the power to short- circuit our subjectivity. It puts us in another person’s shoes. It makes us wonder what we would do, what we would think, and how we would feel were we were the one caught in that frame. Here, f ive famed photo editors select a shot that sparked that visceral jolt of empathy in them, then ref lect on the feelings and thoughts – t he out of body experience – i t prompted.

A Syrian Refugee Walks Through a Rainstorm in Greece Photograph by Yannis Behrakis Chosen by Jean-François Leroy

It is 10 September 2015, and we are near Idomeni in Greece. On an isolated road, a Syrian father carries his daughter in a loving embrace. Today, when we are told about migrants in a completely abstract way, with individuals reduced to anonymous numbers and abstract quantities, this man becomes emblematic of all migrants. He embodies them. He gives them life. Emerging from abstraction, this father and his little girl become the reality of this phenomenon to which Europe has never been able to provide an adequate response. He gives her a cuddle and a kiss on the cheek. We guess that the girl is tired. No doubt frightened. He comforts her, or at least he tr ies to. He does not know where he is taking her. He does not know if he will be able to feed her that day or the next. He doubtless does not know where they are going to sleep. I saw this picture by Yannis Behrakis a few days after it was taken. It gave me goose bumps. I could never forget it. To tell the truth, I have never tr ied to forget it.

Today, when the news brings me new information about migrants, I think of this image. I do not know what has happened to this man. Nor to his little girl. Did they manage to cross the borders? Were they beaten? Did they come up against the ever-expanding barbed wire fences that some countries have put in their way? Did they find a country, a land that would welcome them?

I will cer tainly never know. But I think of them. Often.

Jean-François Leroy has worked for Photo-Reporter, Le Photographe, Pho

to-Revue and Photo Magazine. Since September 1989 he has been running Visa pour l’image, the international photojournalism festival. From 1997 to 2009 he partnered with Hachette Filipacchi through the company Images Evidence, which he bought in July 2009 and of which he is now the CEO.