El Jadida, Morocco- A picture of a boy lying asleep between his parents’ graves has gone viral on different social media described as “the picture that made the whole world cry”.
Facebookers and Twitters claim that the picture depicts a Syrian boy’s loss of his parents during the ongoing conflict between the Syrian Regime Forces and the Opposition Forces since 2011. Moreover, the picture has gained the sympathy of countless viewers towards Syrian children by sharing it on a wide scale.
Shockingly, the picture was shot by a Saudi amateur photographer in Yanbaa city in Saudi Arabia for a fictional tragic scene project that he was working on while the boy in the picture is just his nephew.
In his interview with BBC Arabic, Abdelaziz from Riad city, expressed his deep surprise when he came across his picture published on January, 3rd on his personal Instagram account being misinterpreted by millions of people around the world
“I was very upset when I saw the spread of my picture out of its context under emotional titles such as ‘the picture that made the whole world cry’” said Abdelaziz. “I’m not with Bashar’s policy or against it. I just don’t like to talk politics. But, what happened is an abuse of my picture for media-fraud purposes” he added.
The young 25-year photographer went on to say that he is fond of shooting fictional scenes depicting and raising awareness and stirring debates towards critical social themes, like the case of another scene project he worked on with his same nephew, in which he tackled the theme of domestic violence.
“The scene of the boy lying asleep between his parents’ graves aims at depicting the boy’s feelings of inner peace and psychological tranquility that he finds while lying asleep next to his parents although they have passed away,” he added.
Abdelaziz explains that he makes sure to take extra back-scenes pictures while working on a project and publish them later on so that the audience does not misunderstand the original scenes, especially the controversial or critical ones such as the one of “the Syrian Boy”.
Abdelaziz further invited social media members not to share any picture unless they thoroughly look for and confirm the real story behind it.
Abdelaziz puts the blame on one of the users of Twitter who was the first to share the picture under the wring title.
However, the young photographer confirms that he will keep on shooting such critical and emotional scenes that tackle different social issues despite the misuse his picture has gone through.
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