• Gregory Bull / AP

    A man looks at plaques honoring soldiers below a war memorial cross on Mount Soledad Tueday, Jan. 4, in San Diego. The cross , which sits in a San Diego public park, is unconstitutional because it conveys a message of government endorsement of religion, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in a two decade old case.

    Judges rule cross at Calif. park unconstitutional

    By Rich Shulman

    Photographer Gregory Bull moved the obligatory "straight" picture of the cross. But he also shot this complex, layered image of the plaques, combining the Star of David with the reflections of the cross and a visitor. A complex image for a complex story.

  • Ricardo Moraes and Kai Pfaffenbach / Reuters

    Left, a firefighting plane dumps water over a forest fire at the Brasilia National Park, September 20, 2010. After 117 days without rain in the Federal District, fires caused by the drought have destroyed some 10,000 hectares of the national park. Right, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, head of Germany's bishop's conference gestures as he opens the bishop's annual meeting in Fulda, September 20, 2010.

    Airplane and Archbishop

    These two images appeared side by side in our photo feeds. A photographer friend refers to a picture's "nominal subject matter" as simply the starting point for layers of visual interpretation. In news photography we're dealing with the literal representation of subject matter, but pairings like this remind me that there's another way to look at pictures. It's also a reminder of the incredible diversity of events and people that are photographed every day.