The Metro Bus Shelter Analysis

A homeless woman, Yetta Adams, froze while she was seated on the same shelter, which is located across the street from the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Adams Yetta was aged 43 at the time, and was a mother to three children. While Sternfeld’s image does not include the horrific details of this sad and horrifying death, it a somber reminder of the incident. The Metro Bus Shelter is symbolic of the painful memories in America’s past that people will themselves to forget. The Metro Bus Shelter qualifies as an iconic piece of art. What makes it iconic is the fact that it overshadows other images taken by the same photographer, which could either be equal or more important (Stein 345). For the purpose of this essay, the term icon will be used to refer to something that is highly symbolic.

Due to its symbolic nature, an iconic picture deserves to be revered and treated in high esteem. This definition moves away from Stein’s own assumptions that an iconic photo tends to overshadow other images taken by the same artist. However, it is closely aligned with Devenport’s own alluded understanding of the same. At the same time, her death received little attention and is not commemorated. In this manner, Sternfeld hopes to make her death noteworthy and an incident worthy of commemoration. The Metro Bush Shelter is also symbolic because the author makes use of text to provide additional details of his image. As aforementioned, Sternfeld’s images often include pictures of locations, whose historical subjects are noticeably absent. In order to fill in the historical details that have been lost, he makes use of text (Stanley 41-2).

It is a seemingly ordinary bus shelter, and people’s cars are parked across the road, to imply that business has resumed and is going on as usual. In fact, there are no flowers or other ‘forget-me-nots’ often placed in locations where tragic events have happened. There is no sign of people’s attempt to commemorate the woman who froze to death due to a lack of shelter. On the same note, Sternfeld’s pictures also display one of the most powerful effects of photography, which is to “make the past present” (Oddy 26). This picture, coupled with the accompanying text, draws the viewer to the incident that took place there. The image invokes feeling of sadness, empathy and forlornness. Essentially, it urges people to remember this heartbreaking incident, which they have sought to forget.

Sternfeld’s pictures have often been known to combine elements of drama and irony in equal measure to produce a desired effect (Oddy 26). In this particular picture, the photographer manages to use the same elements to draw attention to the bus shelter, and the tragic incident that took place there and has long been forgotten and lost in history. At first glance, the Metro Bus Shelter, appears to be nothing more than an innocent image. Unlike black and white pictures, colored pictures often have the ability to represent an image in the same manner in which people perceive the world. Colored images, invoke familiarity, a factor that is noticeably absent in black and white pictures (Oddy 27). Sternfeld is able to use color to make the shelter familiar to individuals. Similar bus shelters are located in different places all across Washington DC.

The use of color to impose familiarity reinforces the gravity of the incident that took place at that particular bus stop, urging people to remember, commemorate it and take action. Death, Art and Memory in the Public Sphere: The Visual and Material Culture of Grief in Contemporary America. Mortality. Homes, A. M. Haunting Grounds: Joel Sternfeld’s Crime Sights. Afterimage. Stein, Sally. Passing Likeness: Dorothea Lange’s ‘Migrant Mother’ and the Paradox of Iconicity. In C Fusco and B. Wallis (eds.