we analyzed an advertisement with a clear rhetorical purpose: convince the viewer to buy their product. For this final visual rhetorical analysis, we are going to be looking at a photograph taken by Andrew Biraj in 2012. The New York Times gives us some information about the photograph:
A child jumps on the waste products that are used to make poultry feed as she plays in a tannery at Hazaribagh in Dhaka, Bangladesh on Oct. 9, 2012. Luxury leather goods sold across the world are produced in a slum area of Bangladesh’s capital where workers, including children, are exposed to hazardous chemicals and often injured in horrific accidents, according to a study released on Oct. 9. None of the tanneries, packed cheek-by-jowl into Dhaka’s Hazaribagh neighborhood, treat their waste water, which contains animal flesh, sulphuric acid, chromium and lead, leaving it to spew into open gutters and eventually the city’s main river.
Given this description and given the photograph below, write a rhetorical analysis that is at least 300 words. Devoid of advertisement, what do you believe is Biraj’s intention with this photograph? How does he achieve that intention? Is there any visual irony in this photograph? If so, what is its purpose?