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What is your favorite iconic photograph?


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Eisenstaedt's photo was much better, and much more meaningful. I have nothing against staged photos, BTW - I just don't like it when it's not declared.

 

So, what's my favourite iconic photo? That's a tough one. Very tough. The one of the Napalm attack by Nick Ut has undeniable force. But I think I would choose The Photojournalist by Andreas Feininger.

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An impossible question, of course, and one where I might give a different answer next week. Certainly some of those mentioned, especially Nick Ut's, or perhaps Capa's photo of a face in the surf on D-Day, or Neil Armstrong's picture of Buzz Aldrin on the Moon. But if I had to pick one today, probably Nude (Charis, Santa Monica) by Edward Weston. For reasons given in the linked Wikipedia article and in an interview with Charis Weston, it's an image that needs very careful printing - it's worth seeing an original print if you can (there's one in the Radical Eye exhibition at Tate Modern in London at the moment), or failing that the excellent reproduction in the recent re-issue of The Flame of Recognition.
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It is so interesting that most of the "favorites" identified above are documentary in nature (if not reality), rather than of the more "artistic" variety. I suspect it is because of the power of documentary photos to move us emotionally due to our identification with the human subjects of the images. There are obvious exceptions, of course, but the preponderance noted so far seem to be news photos of extraordinary human events.

 

For me, you would have to ask for my favorites in a variety of genres, and even then it would be tough to answer.

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Karsh's Churchill after he grabbed the cigar to get the belligerent expression from a man who had just won the Battle of Britain. This sort of technique has served me well over the years to get a genuine expression of displeasure or threat. Used it with some guys with guns and lesson learned, don't tell them what you did, especially if the guns are loaded.
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Korda's Guerillero heroico:

http://100photos.time.com/photos/alberto-korda-guerillero-heroico#photographKorda

In addition to everything that has bee said and written about it, one thing is worth adding: this is a photograph that gained its universal recognition and prominence exactly because of the fact that it was not protected by copyright.

What if it wasn't picture of Che, would that pic still popular?

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