Really no need to explain the question but I always like to start with these little preambles. Ahem.
I have told my students that the Mona Lisa is most famous for being, well… famous. That is to say, it is a painting that everyone has seen (not the real one I know) and that the name alone conjures up a mental image of the painting by humanoids all over the planet. There is nothing remarkably fantastic about the subject nor the work itself but EVERYone knows what the Mona Lisa looks like.
Well, what about photographs? I can think of two -one that is a “definite” the other a “maybe”.
First the maybe. National Geographic has just re-run the cover with the lady with the wide-eyed, wild-eyed look staring back at the viewer. You know which one I mean. I believe it was taken somewhere in Eastern Europe or perhaps the Middle East while her homeland was evidently undergoing a great deal of turmoil. Personally I’m not all that crazy about the picture but it is a striking photo nonetheless. O.K., that’s nomination number one.
As far as the Mona Lisa of photographs is concerned, the winner has to be (in the U.S. at least) the picture of the sailor kissing the lady in the street after WWI -or was it WWII? Well that doesn’t matter, you know the picture. And though it is doesn’t have a snappy title and I have no idea the names of the subjects nor even who actually took the picture, I declare that this one wins the Kewpie doll. Any thoughts? Any one?
Yeah, that’s exactly what I thought of when I saw the thread title. I’m nearly positive it was WWII, and the photo was in Life magazine, but not on the cover. Can’t remember the photographer’s name, but the story behind the photo is that this soldier was running down the street kissing every dame in sight, and the photographer was following him around, waiting for him to kiss something light colored to contrast with the soldier’s dark uniform.
I can think of other well known photogrpahs that art-people would know, but the soldier pic is the only one I can think of that Joe Anybody would recognize in an instant.
Oh, seeing don’t ask’s reply in preview. I think that the picture of Che Guevara is more famous as a logo-like image to be stamped on t-shirts & mugs & hippie flags, and not so much as a “photograph.” I most often se it as a stencil-like thing that could have easily originated from a drawing.
The Iwo Jima flag raising is a good one, though.
[sub](Also I think this should be in Cafe Society)[/sub]
Interesting. One of the problems with getting photography to gain wider acceptance as a fine-art medium is just simply that we live in such an image-saturated world today, not to mention people’s notion that photography is somehow “easy” because all you have to do is click the shutter – but that’s another rant. And there are so many iconic images to choose from - Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother? The aforementioned Iwo Jima flag-raising? Yousuf Karsh’s Churchill portrait? The Apollo 11 moon landing? Hard to choose.
But, to get back to the OP, if we restrict our choices to what most people recognize as “fine art photography,” (no, I don’t want to get into a discussion of what art is now), then I’d nominate Ansel Adams’s Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico. Famous photographer, famous image.
BTW, the wild-eyed National Geographic lady is an Afghan refugee, which is probably why they re-ran that photo. It’s probably photographer Steve McCurry’s signature image.
The Iwo Jima flag raising is a good one, though it may have limited appeal outside the United States.
The photograph of the fireman carrying the dead infant from the ruins of the Federal building in Oklahoma City. I can barely even stand to look at this one.
The picture of the astronaut standing by the American flag on the moon. Heck, this was an MTV favorite for years…until MTV decided they wanted to suck.
The picture of the Afghan girl with the haunting eyes has also already been mentioned. That one is composed so well I thought for the longest time that it had to have been posed.
The picture of the young nude Vietnamese girl running of the street crying, after her cloths have been burned off by a napalm strike.
I’m sure there are others, but right now I can’t seem to get that fireman picture out of my head…
American Heritage Magazine recently (in the past year or two) ran an issue where they ranked (something like) “the most important images of our history.” (I wish I could be more specific about the qualifications of their list. I don’t remember if it was based on fame, importance, or what. But I’m pretty sure it was a USA-centric ranking, not an international one.)
The photo ranked #1 was the Wright Bros. first flight at Kitty Hawk. After reading their piece I have to agree that there is something so right about that shot. You can stare at it and stare at it and never get bored. It’s an amazing photograph.
In case it helps, I have a book called “The Lost Art of Forgiveness” which carries that photo on its cover. On the back is a photo of the girl, now approaching middle age, with one of the soldiers who ordered the strike on her village. She forgave him. He looks pretty relieved.
The first things that came to mind for me were the Iwo Jima flag raising and the Afghan refugee (although I didn’t know that she was from Afghanistan until I read this thread).
I don’t recall ever seeing that photo of the soldier kissing before. (It would be interesting to know if other Australians or people outside the U.S. were familiar with it.)
It might be my imagination, but did The Simpsons spoof this photo? I’ve never seen the photograph itself, but I seem to remember someone in The Simpsons grabbing Lisa and giving her a quick french - is that what the photo looks like?
