Almost biblical

Samuel Aranda, A veiled woman holding a wounded relative in her arms after a demonstration in Yemen - World Press Photo of the Year 2012

"Flicking through the 81,000 images originally submitted a sense of deja vu is inevitable. Again and again similar images are repeated, with only the actors and settings changing. Grieving mothers, charred human remains, sun sets, women giving birth, children playing with toy guns, cock fights, bull fights, Havana street scenes, reflections in puddles, reflections in windows, football posts in unlikely locations, swaddled babies, portraits taken through mosquito nets, needles in junkies’ arms, derelict toilets, Palestinian boys throwing stones, contorted Chinese gymnasts, Karl Lagerfeld, models preparing for fashion shows backstage, painted faces, bodies covered in mud, monks smoking cigarettes, pigeons silhouetted against the sky, Indian Sardus, children leaping into rivers, pigs being slaughtered."

(Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin, Unconcerned but not Indifferent, 2008)

"[World Press Photo chairman Aidan] Sullivan said Aranda thought the man might have been the woman's husband, but he was not sure. He said the image has religious "almost Biblical" overtones and noted its resemblance in composition to Michelangelo's Pieta – but in a Muslim setting."

"Almost".

(source)