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Iconic Photos

Posted on Oct 21, 2009 by Jay Lara / 827 Views

Get ready to spend a good chunk of your day perusing this site: Iconic Photos. An amazing collection of photos accompanied with notes for context. It’s a great lesson in world history as well.

Some of the good ones:

Winston Churchill by Yousef Karsh

“Karsh asked Churchill to remove the cigar in his mouth, but Churchill refused. Karsh walked up to Churchill supposedly to get a light level and casually pulled the signature cigar from the lips of Churchill and walked back toward his camera.“
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“The Falling Man” by Richard Drew

““The Falling Man” is a photograph taken by Richard Drew at 9:41:15 a.m., on September 11, 2001 of a man falling from the World Trade Center during the September 11 attacks in New York City. The man in the photograph remains unknown”.
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“In 1917, Elsie Wright, 16, and her cousin Frances Griffith, 10, borrowed a camera belonging to Elsie’s father and took two pictures of what the girls claimed were fairies in Cottingley Beck, England”.
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“In April 1957, Hollywood was hosting a dinner party for the Italian actress, Sophia Loren at the Romanoff’s. Mansfield’s bosom again became the feature of a notorious publicity stunt intended to deflect attention from the Italian star”.
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“The Kiss by the Hôtel de Ville” by Robert Doisneau

“Although Doisneau worked in Paris as a street photographer and stole many an intimate moment of Parisian couples, this classic shot was staged. However, this fact didn’t prevent the picture from gracing the walls of many freshman dorm rooms since its first production in 1986. More than 500,000 posters and 400,000 postcards have been reprinted from the original”.
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“Child with a toyhand grenade in Central Park, NYC.” by Diane Arbus

“The boy in question was Colin Wood, the son of tennis player Sidney Wood, who was caught “in a moment of exasperation”, his hands claw-like, his face maniacal. Arbus captured this photograph by having the boy stand while moving around him, claiming she was trying to find the right angle. The boy became impatient and told her to “Take the picture already!”
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The Death of Omayra Sánchez by Frank Fournier

“Fournier himself won the World Press Photo prize in 1986 for this portrait–which reflected his own feeling of powerlessness. Omayra’s agonizing demise, surrounded by journalists and photographers, was followed live on television all over the world, and started a major controversy: in such a situation, wouldn’t it have been better to offer help rather than to take pictures? Is it possible to show the suffering of others without violating their right to have their privacy respected? For the photographers, it is of the utmost importance that the public be informed.”
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