An Image’s Power

Joe Rosenthal’s famous photograph of Marines raising the flag at Iwo Jima is now in the news. There’s a bit of a controversy over who, exactly, is in the photograph.

Regardless how that question is resolved, it’s a reminder of the influence certain images have on us.

I recall reading the story about Associated Press Photographer Joe Rosenthal snapping that photo—the fighting going on all around him, his sense that the flag raising would be good to capture, his swinging the camera up just in t...