How I wish I could edit my own messages :o
Oh yes, little lifeless Baylee Almon with her little bitty feet with socks on and that firefighter looking at her with that look of tenderness…
Then there’s the picture of the Vietnamese dude who is kneeling in the dirt with his hands tied behind his back. A pistol is pointed at his temple and he’s squinting. The picture was snapped just as the bullet penetrated his brain.
::shudder::
On a happier note, the picture of JFK, Jr. and his new bride, Caroline, exiting the rustic church on Cumberland Island is just an awesome picture on so many levels. They both look so happy.
And I’m a complete sucker for Bob Talbot’s works. I just love his picture of a whale tail, Megaptera. It’s congruity and black wetness contrasted with the blues and greys of the water and sky is just wonderful.
Not, I think, a famous photo, but it stands out in my memory: it was in an issue of Time or Life or somesuch in the mid-90’s, on the ongoing atrocities in Sierra Leone. It had become quite popular, among monsters who pretended to be human, to maim and massacre the enemy–especially by chopping off hands.
The photo was of a child staring bleakly into the camera, holding up two little stumps.
I don’t have words for how that haunted me.
Talbot is a great underwater photographer. My stepmom has a framed picture of his signed and personalized. Great stuff.
The swan dive picture from September 11th.
The 1970 Kent State picture of Mary Ann Vecchio sitting over the dead body of student Jeffery Miller.
I have seen many of the images mentioned, and yes they are powerful images. But the one I have in mind is more obsure
When the bluebonnets are in bloom in fields along the freeways many families take their children and take annual photo’s in the field’s. I had thought that I would too one day when I had kids. But the spring after my first son was born, I saw a photograph with no children in it, just the trampled fields. I was dismayed at the image. I guess because that photograph changed (or rather prevented) a behavior, it would be the one that had the most impact on me.
Abb
I should add that, it’s not a “favorite” per se, but it changed me. If I shared my favorites I would be a bore, for they are all of my sons.
I will never forget the moment in college when I stumbled across W. Eugene Smith’s photoessay, Minamata, with one of the most stunning photographs ever taken: Tomoko in Her Bath. Minamata is a town in Kyushu where the main employer, Chisso Chemical, dumped large quantities of mercury compounds beginning in the late 1930s and continuing into the 60s. Smith’s attempts ca. 1970 to document the dumping’s disastrous consequences provoked a vicious attack from company goons, from which he never fully recovered. More recently, Smith’s widow granted control over the photograph to Tomoko’s family - and that’s a fascinating story in itself: Tomoko Uemura, R.I.P..
Just to set the record straight, and assuming you are talking about the photo shown here, the man being executed was a Vietcong guerrila caught engaging in sabotage against the south. As horrible as the photo is, ( and it is ) General Nguyen Ngoc Loan was within his rights to execute the guerrila within the rules of war.
I had a picture that meant a lot to me. For me, it was the perfect sumation of my emotions after the Sept 11 attacks. It showed a man, covered in soot, standing amongst the ruins. He had his ruined coat over his arm. Towards the center of the picture was a pickup, half coverd in debrees and ruined, and to the right was the American flag, flying on a pole. The man was looking up at the flag.
To me, that one picture sums up the numb horror and disbelief of the attack, coupled with the unshakeable knowledge that we ( The U.S and humanity) will rise above and be stronger than we ever were. It was the wallpaper on my 'puter for quite a while, until I lost it in a hard drive crash. I haven’t been able to find it since, but I wish I could.
I would have to second the Kevin Carter picture of the starving child and the vulture. I happened to see it again two days ago while leafing through a Pultizer Photo book and it left me immensely sad and disturbed. That photo will probably always haunt me. The amount of suffering and sadness in the world can be overwhelming at times.
I know that Carter did chase the vulture away and the picture was taken right outside an aid station–so the child was helped. His suicide was probably also related to the deaths of several of his photog friends (anybody read the Bang-Bang Club?).
The cover art for John Zorn’s album Naked City has deeply effected me. The complete disregard for human life is so horrifying in its simplicity and matter-of-factness.
Afew months ago a photo circulated the email circuit of a ice sculpture done in Canada, it showed a NYFD fireman sitting on the side of a curb, and leaning against his back was a weeping lady liberty. I haven’t been able to get this photo out of my mind since then.
I have never been affected like this by a photo before.
Here’s another one in the same vein.
The waters off the French coast during or just after the Normandy invasion.
Hundreds and hundreds of dead bodies just floating in the waves/breakers with people on the beach going about their business.
Most recently, the photograph of firefighters carrying away the lifeless body of Mychal Judge (the NYFD chaplain) from the WTC rubble moved me immensely. For some reason, I can’t find it online with Google.
peepthis,
Here is the picture you were looking for.
Kevin Carter’s photo of the Sudanese girl actually resulted in me failing my senior year of college.
I got in a, er, disagreement with a literature professor who used the photo as an example of “an absent God”. He had not read the New York Times that morning, and didn’t know where or why that photograph had been taken.
My stated opinion that the Sudanese were not dying of famine nor the absence of Divine Grace, but rather because men carrying rifles and the Koran had shot the farmers and salted the fields, didn’t fit in well with his lesson plan.
In the ‘famous photo’ category: [ul]
[li]That Earthrise photo that 'toon mentioned, and for the same reason.[/li][li]The photo of one man standing in front of the tanks in Tianenmin Square.[/li][li]There’s an Australian photo that disturbed (and still disturbs) the hell out of me; Aboriginal men in chains. Boil it down to basics, slavery did exist in my county, and I’m ashamed of that. It’s a reminder to do better.[/li][/ul]
And in the ‘not-famous photo’ category, my mother’s spent a lot of time compiling all the photos of her side of the family from as many relatives as she could get. They go back to WW1. It’s fascinating to trace the similarities in our faces, back through the generations. My especial favourites are: a photo of my grandmother taken in the late 20s, and her smile is kind of a cross between the Mona Lisa and and a mischievous teenager; and one of my grandfather taken on their honeymoon - an unposed shot that is almost perfectly composed. My grandfather died when I was two; I look at the smile on his face and wonder if I would have enjoyed knowing him. I think I would.