Photo of Stern First Lady at Mandela's Memorial Service Goes Viral - East Idaho News
News

Photo of Stern First Lady at Mandela’s Memorial Service Goes Viral

  Published at

GETTY OBAMA MANDELA 121113?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1386797334080ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP/Getty Images(JOHANNESBURG) — First lady Michelle Obama did not look amused as President Obama posed for a selfie at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service.

The first lady was caught appearing to glare at the president as he posed with British Prime Minister David Cameron and Danish Premier Helle Thorning-Schmidt for a cell phone photo.

The image of the heads of government quickly went viral on Tuesday in the hours after the funeral. Many upbraided the trio for a moment of levity during an otherwise somber memorial.

The first lady’s stern glance seemed only to feed that narrative and by Wednesday morning, the story had become one about her dagger-filled stare.

But the AFP photographer who caught Tuesday’s scene in South Africa has come to the first lady’s defense.

“Photos can lie,” Roberto Schmidt wrote on the wire agency’s photo blog. “In reality, just a few seconds earlier the first lady was herself joking with those around her, Cameron and Schmidt included. Her stern look was captured by chance.”

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

SUBMIT A CORRECTION