13 Photographs That Changed the World

<p>I just ran across an article "Ransom Riggs Is Inspired by Vintage Snapshots" and was trying to find more of the old photos associated with Ransom Riggs. Instead I came across the <strong>13 Photographs That Changed the World</strong> link. We have probably all seen most of these photos and can think of many more that changed the world even more, but I found the short articles under each photo written by Riggs very interesting. <br /><br />I have never seen the amazing Dali photo. Photographer Philippe Halsman and all involved would probably be arrested if they tried to do this today. "It took six hours, 28 jumps, and a roomful of assistants throwing angry cats and buckets of water into the air to get the perfect exposure." Thank goodness today we have photoshop:)<br />http://www.neatorama.com/2007/01/02/13-photographs-that-changed-the-world/<br /><br />Sorry, don't know how to make the above link work, without copy/paste.<br>

<br />Here is another site, but I found the link above easier to read and the images were a little larger. http://www.pbase.com/omoses/13</p>

<p>The term "Changing the world" seems to have become so devaluated, that it means next to nothing anymore. Surely some of these photos are among the most seen and known but changing anything as a photograph is questionable. That some of these photos became markers of events to come, could be argued. Dali's<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_JDaDBEb_kxU/TTdW1hAxFCI/AAAAAAAAAcQ/bOsy4yfyO4w/s1600/DSC_0158.JPG"> Atomicus</a> falls outside any such category, unless Dali himself speaks from the grave - which is not unlikely ! <br>

Thanks for the link, John (the second works)</p>

I think that some of those may be described as photos of events that changed the world, but to call them world changing

in themselves is overly enthusiastic.

The D Day photo being a perfect case in point.

Fenton was photographing the Crimian war in the 1850s and bringing the reality of war home, so a photo of a civil war in

the next decade...

<p>I agree with Peter. They are iconic photos of events that changed the world (well, some of them, anyway). They immortalized the events, but didn't cause the changes.</p>

<p>These photos were taken by amateur photographers with phone cameras, and without any technical or artistic merits. Yet they were arguably the most viewed images around the world in the past decade. They elicited extreme emotional responses from every viewer, and had affected the way we live at many levels.<br>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse</p>

I like the Dali and the Einstein. The rest of them are just depressing. Collections of so-called "important" photos are

always depressing. If you want to be highly regarded as a photographer, the formula seems to be that you should take

pictures of dead bodies or impoverished people. :-)

 

Personally, I prefer photos that art artistic, aesthetically pleasing, surprising, or insightful.

 

By the way, I think the film of the Hindenberg disaster was more compelling than the still photo. "Oh, the humanity!"

<p>Arguably, the Eddie Adams image did cause real change. The rest? No.</p>

<p>The nude cover shot of Marilyn Monroe lounged against the red drape changed my pubescent 1953 world..... No baloney. It started me off sneaking those Playboys and lusting for lustful thoughts. "I buy it For the Editorial Content ,why of course, mom ":-).. link not quote safe for work caveat, though tame enough for all garage mechanic locker rooms.....gs<br /> http://www.marilynmonroe.ca/camera/Playboy/playboy2.jpg</p>

<blockquote>

<p>It took six hours, 28 jumps, and a roomful of assistants throwing angry cats and buckets of water into the air to get the perfect exposure.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Poor cats! I think it unlikely that they survived the shoot without injury. Hopefully one or two of them managed to draw some blood from their assailants.</p>

<p>I respected prolific photographer Eisenstadt for his work with a small Leica on assignment for a Life the photo mag and I saw him live on a job at my college for Life magazine one of many photo series. Small guy/ big talent. 90 Life covers! Ninety!)<br /> His emotional and representative photo of VE day (sailor kissing bent back nurse) always stuck in my mind as a time and place image. A sailor out of the conflict and going back home embracing a nearby nurse in New York Times Square. What a day that must have been.<br>

Me, hey in uniform I would have kissed a lot of nurses then, and any other of that gender within arms reach. Remember the old lyric " When I I'm not near the girl I love. I love the girl I'm near."... as Harburg and Burton wrote in the Finian Rainbow 1947 show lyric.....<br>

My wife and I did a little snapshot bender no doubt b fueled by some ethyl alcohol:-). <br /> Aside :Any bold miss who would like to give it another go with me,- ballet dancers with supple spines particularly welcomed...."-) <br /> Yes, an iconic photo of the end of a vicious battle stage in a beautiful pastoral country for who crossed the Rhineland. Before Stalin's Berlin blockade came ended our kissing stangers in mad celebration of victory in Europe campaign to save the world.</p><div></div>

<p>"Photos that changed the world." huh? Balderdash. Brady's photo of the dead on the battlefield in 1863 didn't change anything, it was thousands of such photos by many cameramen. Plus the new custom of embalming dead soldiers to be sent back home so their loved ones could see for themselves if it was their relative or friend who had died. Viewing a real dead soldier trumps a photo anytime. I have great respect for the Eddie Adams photo. The Associated Press claims Pres. Johnson looked at that photo on the front page of a newspaper and it caused him to wind down the Vietnam war. Was it that photo or the massive overwhelming bad news he was getting? Was the photo just the icing on the cake, the straw that broke the camel's back?<br>

One single Hindenberg photo did not change the world. There were lots of photographers and movie cameramen there. The Halsman nonsense is proof that artists and photographers can use tricks, slight-of-hand and tomfoolery to become rich and famous.<br>

The Capa D-Day photo is fascinating but maybe, if there was any Change-the-worlding going on, the dude who placed the wet negatives too close to the heat source in the film drying cabinet should take a victory lap around the track or do a couple of barrel rolls over the flying field.</p>

 

<p>""<em>Arguably, the Eddie Adams image did cause real change."</em>"</p>

<p>One could ask: Which change are you referring to, Les ?</p>

<p>The Vietnamese soldier, Lt. Colonel Nguyen Ngoc Loan, who fired the shot, in front of the photographer, continued his glorious career and became Brigadier General during the mini-Tet offensive in May 1968. Adams became a world famous war photographer, and Nguyen Van Lam, the Vietcong who was executed, became a martyr. The President of the US prepared for leaving the battle field in Vietnam because he was clearer loosing it, despite the brutality (on both sides!).</p>

<p>The photo did not change anything of importance in the world, but became an image, among others, of the brutality of war. Other wars, even more brutal, did indeed follow elsewhere and later, as we all know.</p>

<p>Change the world?, of course we can logically call it hyperbole. I truly respect and am moved by photo images that have become classic as an emblem of their times. Either as a documentary or symbol of a state of mind or an ethos. Kent shootings and the horror face on a girl student. Dogs and water jets attacking blacks in Alabama. The wrong misguided photo in the wrong time and place can provoke a "fatwa" or insurrection and change national relationships and/or diplomacy.</p>

<p>I totally agree, Gerry, but not among those thirteen, it seems to me, although I would not use the term "fatwa". </p>

<p>What about the Tank Man photo? (Or rather, one of the photos of the Tank Man). </p>

<p>http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/behind-the-scenes-a-new-angle-on-history/</p>

<p>A few of those photos were significant in that they altered the perception of a population, but they were just one of among many. The Kent State student shooting photo was arguably as influential as the Vietnamese soldier shooting.</p>

<p>Many of the world's most significant events don't have iconic photos to represent them; Kissinger's historic visit to China come to mind. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>If intelligent extraterrestrial life decide to ever stop by Earth for a visit, maybe it will be because of <em>The Tetons and the Snake River </em>photograph. Then again, if they were intelligent, they would probably skip the "Third Stone From the Sun" as a vacation destination :-D<br /><br /><em><br /></em><br>

Adams's photograph <em>The Tetons and the Snake River</em> was one of the 115 images recorded on the (click link)> <a title="Voyager Golden Record" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voyager_Golden_Record">Voyager Golden Record</a> aboard the Voyager spacecraft. These images were selected to convey information about humans, plants and animals, and geological features of the Earth to a possible alien civilization. </p>

<p title="Carl Sagan">The contents of the record were selected for NASA by a committee chaired by Carl Sagan of Cornell University. Sagan and his associates assembled 116 images and a variety of natural sounds, such as those made by surf, wind, thunder and animals (including the songs of birds and whales). </p>

<p>The collection of images includes many photographs and diagrams both in black and white and color. The first images are of scientific interest, showing mathematical and physical quantities, the Solar System and its planets, DNA, and human anatomy and reproduction. Care was taken to include not only pictures of humanity, but also some of animals, insects, plants and landscapes. Images of humanity depict a broad range of cultures. These images show food, architecture, and humans in portraits as well as going about their day-to-day lives. Many pictures are annotated with one or more indications of scales of time, size, or mass. Some images contain indications of chemical composition. All measures used on the pictures are defined in the first few images using physical references that are likely to be consistent anywhere in the universe.<br>

After NASA had received <a title="Pioneer plaque" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_plaque#Criticism">criticism over the nudity on the Pioneer plaque</a> (line drawings of a naked man and woman), the agency chose not to allow Sagan and his colleagues to include a photograph of a nude man and woman on the record. Instead, only a silhouette of the couple was included. Actually the record does contain in "Diagram of vertebrate evolution", by Jon Lomberg drawings of anatomically correct naked male and naked female, showing external organs.</p>

<p>The rest of the images on the record- http://voyager.jpl.nasa.gov/spacecraft/sceneearth.html</p>

 

<p>On the one hand, I wasn't aware of Riggs' other photography related book and writing project, so I'm looking forward to reading those.</p>

<p>On the other hand, some of the summaries in that 2007 article seemed a bit shallow or misleading. Describing Eddie Adams' photo with the headline using the word "murder" is inaccurate, from a historical perspective. The photo was titled "General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon". The rest of Riggs' description was accurate and put that into perspective, so it's puzzling why he didn't use the easily confirmed original news caption for the photo.</p>

<p>And Riggs' description of Ansel Adams' "The Tetons - Snake River" shows little insight into the darkroom wizardry behind the typical Adams photo. It reads like a too-familiar school summary based on reading *about* Adams as portrayed *by* Adams' sycophants without any experience in the actual darkroom process. Adams' photos were hardly "pure photography". The statement "Adams eschewed manipulations, claiming they were simply derivative of other art forms," shows no insight at all into the real process. Adams heavily manipulated his photos from start to finish, through careful selection of filters, exposures, and film processing tricks to achieve a negative that would then be printed with masterful use of dodging, burning, tricks to adjust contrast, bleaching, intensification and every possible method available to impose his highly romanticized heroic vision of the American landscape. The fact that he didn't use soft focus lenses, didn't add elements that weren't originally there (although he did subtract distracting elements by burning them into blackness), and didn't approach photography as a substitute for painting didn't mean his photos weren't manipulated. Adams simply imposed his personal vision of realism and was an aggressive and effective marketer for his vision of how photography should be, through books, public speaking and lobbying of Kodak, museums, galleries and movers and shakers in the photography world. He was as much a master manipulator behind the scenes as he was in the darkroom.</p>

<p>Anyway, I don't have any quibbles with the particular choice of 13 photos. They were all influential and significant. But we'd all have our own personal list of 10, a dozen or a baker's dozen photos that we consider most significant.</p>

<p>Interesting collection. Pretty evocative stuff.</p>

<p>Andy</p>