Sep 26, 2011
Sep 23, 2011
Baliati Zamindar Bari,Manikgang
Baliati Palace is one of the finest
specimens of 19th century monuments of the Renaissance colonial style in
Bangladesh. The founder of the Baliati Zaminder was on Govinda Ram
Shaha, who was a big salt Marchant in tha middle of the 18th century. He
left four sons; Dadhi Ram, Ananda Ram, Pandit Ram and Golap Ram. They
built all these buildings. The famous Jagannath University in Dhaka was
founded and endowed by a member of Baliati family, Babu Kishori Lal Roy
Chowdhury.
The building Complex consisted of seven but separate blocks surrounded by a high enclosur wall pierced by three indentical gateways, surmounted with a lion.
The complex occupying an area of 5.88 acres of land and containing over 200 rooms of various shapes and dimensions. To the north there is a tank with regular masonry landings.
The central block of upper storey has a decorative hall called Rang Mohal is now using as a museum.
The palatial complex is now being preserve as a protected cultural properties under the provisions of the Act No. xiii of 1968"amended in 1976". The Dept. of Archaeology protected this site on 1987.
The building Complex consisted of seven but separate blocks surrounded by a high enclosur wall pierced by three indentical gateways, surmounted with a lion.
The complex occupying an area of 5.88 acres of land and containing over 200 rooms of various shapes and dimensions. To the north there is a tank with regular masonry landings.
The central block of upper storey has a decorative hall called Rang Mohal is now using as a museum.
The palatial complex is now being preserve as a protected cultural properties under the provisions of the Act No. xiii of 1968"amended in 1976". The Dept. of Archaeology protected this site on 1987.
Sep 22, 2011
15 Worlds Most Famous Photographers
Worlds Most Famous Photographers
1. Robert Capa
(born Endre Ern? Friedmann October 22, 1913 – May 25, 1954) Capa originally wanted to be a writer; however, he found work in photography in Berlin and grew to love the art. In 1933, he moved from Germany to France because of the rise of Nazism, but found it difficult to find work there as a freelance journalist. Capa’s first published photograph was that of Leon Trotsky making a speech in Copenhagen on “The Meaning of the Russian Revolution” in 1932 making him one of world’s famous photographers.
2. Carol Guzy
Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Carol Guzy (born 1956) is one of the most renowned American photojournalists of all time. Guzy gets results because she focuses on shooting feelings rather than pictures. Through her lens, she has delved into the darkest corners of human existence, hoping to bring understanding between people in all parts of the world. Over the years, she has brought viewers face to face with Kosovo refugees, famine in Ethiopia, civil unrest in Haiti, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the tragedy of south Florida’s Hurricane Andrew.
3. James Nachtwey
James Natchwey was born in 1948 in Syracuse. He began photographing because he was “influenced by imagery from the Vietnam War and the American Civil Rights movement.” In 1976 he started to photograph for “a small newspaper in New Mexico.” He “documented a variety of armed conflicts and social issues.” He has been around South Africa, Latin America, the Middle East, Russia, Eastern Europe, The Soviet Union, Western Europe and the United States, photographing different events and the socio-political issues. He did a series of photographs from the September 11 attacks and also when the United States went to Iraq to the war. He was injured in Iraq; a bomb exploded in the vehicle he was in. He recovered from that and went to Asia to do a remarkable series covering what the Tsunami ion December 26, 2004 had caused. He has been contracted to work for the Time Magazine since 1984. He is also a “founding member of the photo agency VII.
4. Steve McCurry
Steve McCurry was born April 23, 1950 is an American photojournalist. McCurry began studying film history cinematography and filmmaking at Penn State in 1968, but ended up getting a degree in theater arts and graduating cum laude in 1974. He became very interested in photography when he started taking pictures for the Penn State newspaper called The Daily Collegian.Steve McCurry took a picture of a 12 year old Afghan girl. Her picture became so famous that in 1985, National Geographic magazine printed it as their cover. The picture is called The Afghan Girl.
5. Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange was born in Hoboken, New Jersey, in 1895 and studied photography in New York City before the First World War. In 1919, she moved to San Francisco, where she earned her living as a portrait photographer for more than a decade. During the Depression’s early years Lange’s interest in social issues grew and she began to photograph the city’s dispossessed. A 1934 exhibition of these photographs introduced her to Paul Taylor, an associate professor of economics at the University of California at Berkeley, and in February 1935 the couple together documented migrant farm workers in Nipomo and the Imperial Valley for the California State Emergency Relief Administration.That is why she is one of the world’s famous photographers.
6. Henri Cartier-Bresson
Born in Chanteloup, Seine-et-Marne, Henri Cartier-Bresson developed a strong fascination with painting early on, and particularly with Surrealism. In 1932, after spending a year in the Ivory Coast, he discovered the Leica – his camera of choice thereafter – and began a life-long passion for photography. In 1933 he had his first exhibition at the Julien Levy Gallery in New York. He later made films with Jean Renoir. He was an early adopter of 35 mm format, and the master of candid photography. He helped develop the “street photography” or “real life reportage” style that has influenced generations of photographers who followed.
7. Frank Fournier
Frank Fournier was born in 1948 in Saint-Sever, France. The son of a surgeon, he embarked on four full years of medical studies before beginning his career in photography in 1975 in New York City. He first joined the office staff of Contact Press Images in 1977 and became a member photographer in 1982. Fournier’s winning photo “The agony of Omayra Sanchez” .At the time the now famous photograph was taken, the world was already fixated on the tragedy. Omayra was one of the victims at the center of the associated controversy over responsibility for the disaster. Almost immediately after its release, the image captured widespread attention. According to an unnamed BBC author, “many were appalled at witnessing so intimately what transpired to be the last few hours of Omayra’s life”. Thus making Fournier one of the world’s most famous photographers.
8. Walker Evans
Walker Evens was born in November 3, 1903 in St. Louis, Missouri. He worked for the Farm Security Administration, and like Dorothea he “document[ed] the effects of the Great Depression.” He not only documented the Great Depression but “he also focuses on the landscapes and architecture around him” He photographed “Cuba during the revolt against dictator Machado.” He published Let Us Praise Famous Men that included his work from the documentation of the Great Depression and other works. His photographs were like Dorothea’s; they were “icons of [the] Depression-Era misery and poverty.” After doing that work he “went on to work in an abstract modernist, using the tools of both black-and-white and color photography to cover both socio-political issues and more conceptual artistic ideas.” He is also most noted for his work with James Agee, observing poor southern sharecropping families during the great depression. The pain and intrusion is so evident in their faces, the pride and humiliation shown throughout.
9. Malcolm Browne
Born in 1933, Malcolm Browne was born and raised in New York City. His mother was a Quaker with fervently anti-war opinions, his father a Roman Catholic and an architect. Browne attended Friends Seminary, a Quaker school in Manhattan from kindergarten through to twelfth grade. He went to a Quaker college in Pennsylvania and studied chemistry. A Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist and photographer. His best known work is the award-winning photograph of the self-immolation of Buddhist monk Thích Qu?ng ??c in 1963.
10. Murray Becker
Murray Becker, an Associated Press photographer whose pictures of the burning airship Hindenburg and a weeping Lou Gehrig are among the most celebrated in journalism, died of cancer Tuesday at his home in North Miami Beach, Fla. He was 77 years old and had been retired since 1972.
For 32 of his 43 years with The A.P., Mr. Becker managed the news service’s picture-taking efforts and had the title chief photographer. His acclaimed pictures of the Hindenburg disaster of May 6, 1937, at Lakehurst, N.J., were a series of 15 shots, from first flare-up to the rescue of survivors. When it was over and his film holders were headed for Newark to be processed, Mr. Becker sat down and wept.
11. Kevin Carter
(1961-1994) – South Africa Pulitzer Prize winner, Kevin Carter, took his own life months after winning the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography for a haunting Sudan famine picture. A free-lance photographer for Reuter and Sygma Photo NY and former PixEditor of the Mail & Gaurdian, Kevin dedicated his carrer to covering the ongoing conflict in his native South Africa. He was highly honored by the prestigious Ilford Photo Press Awards on several occasions including News Picture of the Year 1993.
12. Helen Levitt
One of the most important figures in contemporary photography is the New Yorker Helen Levitt. For over 60 years her quiet, poetic photographs made on the streets of the city she has inhabited for most of her life have inspired and amazed generations of photographers, students, collectors, curators, and lovers of art in general. Throughout her long career, Helen Levitt’s photographs have consistently reflected her poetic vision, humor, and inventiveness as much as they have honestly portrayed her subjects—men, women, and children living it out on the streets and among the tenements of New York.
Born In 1945-46 she shot and edited the film In the Street with Janice Loeb and James Agee, providing a moving portrait of her still photography. Levitt’s first major museum exhibition was at the Museum of Modern Art in 1943, and a second solo show, of color work only, was held there in 1974. Major retrospectives of her work have been held at several museums: first in 1991, jointly at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; in 1997 at the International Center for Photography in New York; and in 2001 at the Centre National la Photography in Paris.
13. Philippe Halsman
Philippe Halsman (1906-1979) was born in Riga, Latvia. He studied engineering in Dresden before moving to Paris, where he set up his photographic studio in 1932. Halsman’s bold, spontaneous style won him many admirers. His portraits of actors and authors appeared on book jackets and in magazines; he worked with fashion (especially hat designs), and filled commissions for private clients. By 1936, Halsman was known as one of the best portrait photographers in France.
From the 1940s through the 1970s, Philippe Halsman’s sparkling portraits of celebrities, intellectuals, and politicians appeared on the covers and pages of the big picture magazines, including Look, Esquire, the Saturday Evening Post, Paris Match, and especially Life. His work also appeared in advertisements and publicity for clients like Elizabeth Arden cosmetics, NBC, Simon & Schuster, and Ford.
14. Charles O’Rear
Charles O’Rear (born 1941) is an American photographer best known for his photos of wine country and the image Bliss that was used as a standard wallpaper in Windows XP.
During the 1970s, he contributed to the Environmental Protection Agency’s DOCUMERICA project. O’Rear photographed for National Geographic Magazine for more than 25 years. He began his focus on winemaking in 1978 as an assignment to photograph the Napa Valley. Afterwards, he moved to Napa Valley and began photographing wine production around the world. To date, O’Rear has provided photographs for seven wine books.
15. Roger Fenton
Roger Fenton (28 March 1819 – 8 August 1869) was a pioneering British photographer, one of the first war photographers.He is particularly known for his coverage of the Crimean War, which is a pity, because it only formed a small proportion of his output in other areas, notably landscape photography, and also somewhat obscures the major part he played in promoting photography in general.
The Crimean War (1853-1956) was one of many between Russia and the Turks, but this time involved the British and French. William Russell, a journalist working for The Times, and one of the first war correspondents, began to send a series of disturbing accounts of the conduct of this war, and particularly the conditions under which the British forces were fighting. Less than 20% of the fatalities of the forces were due to war wounds; the majority of these were caused by disease and the freezing cold. When Russell began to report the inadequacy of the medical facilities and the fact that British soldiers, not having even been issued with winter uniforms, were dying with cold, feeling over the government’s handling of the war began to mount.
Article Name: 15 World Most Famous Photographers by Dustin Betonio on 6th Oct,2011
Source: http://www.tripwiremagazine.com/2011/10/famous-photographers.html
13 Photographs That Changed the World.
1. The Photograph That Raised the Photojournalistic Stakes:
"Omaha Beach, Normandy, France"
Robert Capa, 1944
"If your pictures aren’t good enough," war photographer Robert Capa used to say, "you aren’t close enough." Words to die by, yes, but the man knew of what he spoke. After all, his most memorable shots were taken on the morning of D-Day, June 6, 1944, when he landed alongside the first waves of infantry at Omaha Beach.
"Omaha Beach, Normandy, France"
Robert Capa, 1944
Caught under heavy fire, Capa dove for what little cover he could find, then shot all the film in his camera, and got out – just barely. He escaped with his life, but not much else. Of the four rolls of film Capa took of the horrific D-Day battle, all but 11 exposures were ruined by an overeager lab assistant, who melted the film in his rush to develop it. (He was trying to meet the deadline for the next issue of Life magazine.)
In an ironic twist, however, that same mistake gave the few surviving exposures their famously surreal look ("slightly out of focus," Life incorrectly explained upon printing them). More than 50 years later, director Steven Spielberg would go to great lengths to reproduce the look of that "error" for his harrowing D-Day landing sequence in "Saving Private Ryan," even stripping the coating from his camera lenses to echo Capa’s notorious shots.
2. The Photograph That Gave a Face to the Great Depression
"Migrant Mother"
Dorothea Lange, 1936
As era-defining photographs go, "Migrant Mother" pretty much takes the cake. For many, Florence Owens Thompson is the face of the Great Depression, thanks to legendary shutterbug Dorothea Lange. Lange captured the image while visiting a dusty California pea-pickers’ camp in February 1936, and in doing so, captured the resilience of a proud nation facing desperate times.
Unbelievably, Thompson’s story is as compelling as her portrait. Just 32 years old when Lange approached her ("as if drawn by a magnet," Lange said). Thompson was a mother of seven who’d lost her husband to tuberculosis. Stranded at a migratory labor farm in Nipomo, Calif. her family sustained themselves on birds killed by her kids and vegetables taken from a nearby field – as meager a living as any earned by the other 2,500 workers there. The photo’s impact was staggering. Reproduced in newspapers everywhere, Thompson’s haunted face triggered an immediate public outcry, quickly prompting politicos from the federal Resettlement Administration to send food and supplies. Sadly, however, Thompson and her family had already moved on, receiving nary a wedge of government cheese for their high-profile misery. In fact, no one knew the identity of the photographed woman until Thompson revealed herself years later in a 1976 newspaper article.
3. The Photograph That Brought the Battlefield Home
"Federal Dead on the Field of Battle of First Day, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania"
Mathew Brady, 1863
As one of the world’s first war photographers, Mathew Brady didn’t start
out having as action-packed a career as you might think. A successful daguerreotypist and a distinguished gentleman, Brady was known for his portraits of notable people such as Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee. In other words, he was hardly a photojournalist in the trenches.
In fact, Brady had everything to lose by making a career move – his money, his business, and quite possibly his life. Nevertheless, he decided to risk it all and follow the Union Army into battle with his camera, saying, "A spirit in my feet said, ‘Go!’" And go he did – at least until he got a good look at the pointy end of a Confederate bayonet.
After narrowly escaping capture at the first Battle of Bull Run, Brady’s chatty feet quieted down a bit, and he began sending assistants in his place. In the span of only a few years, Brady and his team shot more than 7,000 photographs – an astounding number when you consider that developing a single plate required a horse-drawn-wagon-full of cumbersome equipment and noxious chemicals. Not exactly what you’d call "point-and-shoot."
Tethered as he was to his equine-powered darkroom and with film speeds being much slower then, Brady produced war photos that are understandably light on the action and heavy on the aftermath. Still, they mark the first time Americans were so immediately confronted with the grim realities of the battlefield.
4. The Photograph That Ended a War But Ruined a Life
"Murder of a Vietcong by Saigon Police Chief"
Eddie Adams, 1968
"Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world," AP photojournalist Eddie Adams once wrote. A fitting quote for Adams, because his 1968 photograph of an officer shooting a handcuffed prisoner in the head at point-blank range not only earned him a Pulitzer Prize in 1969, but also went a long way toward souring Americans’ attitudes about the Vietnam War.
For all the image’s political impact, though, the situation wasn’t as black-and-white as it’s rendered. What Adams’ photograph doesn’t reveal is that the man being shot was the captain of a Vietcong "revenge squad" that had executed dozens of unarmed civilians earlier the same day. Regardless, it instantly became an icon of the war’s savagery and made the official pulling the trigger – General Nguyen Ngoc Loan – its iconic villain.
Sadly, the photograph’s legacy would haunt Loan for the rest of his life. Following the war, he was reviled where ever he went. After an Australian VA hospital refused to treat him, he was transferred to the United States, where he was met with a massive (though unsuccessful) campaign to deport him. He eventually settled in Virginia and opened a restaurant but was forced to close it down as soon as his past caught up with him. Vandals scrawled "we know who you are" on his walls, and business dried up.
Adams felt so bad for Loan that he apologized for having taken the photo at all, admitting, "The general killed the Vietcong; I killed the general with my camera."
5. The Photograph That Isn’t as Romantic as You Might Think
"V-J Day, Times Square, 1945", a.k.a. "The Kiss"
Alfred Eisenstaedt, 1945
On August 14, 1945, the news of Japan’s surrender was announced in the United States, signaling the end of World War II. Riotous celebrations erupted in the streets, but perhaps none were more relieved than those in uniform. Although many of them had recently returned from victory in
Europe, they faced the prospect of having to ship out yet again, this time to the bloody Pacific.
Among the overjoyed masses gathered in Times Square that day was one of the most talented photojournalists of the 20th century, a German immigrant named Alfred Eisenstaedt. While snapping pictures of the celebration, he spotted a sailor "running along the street grabbing any and every girl in sight." He later explained that, "whether she was a grandmother, stout, thin, old, didn’t make any difference."
Of course, a photo of the sailor planting a wet one on a senior citizen wouldn’t have made the cover of Life, but when he locked lips with an attractive nurse, the image was circulated in newspapers across the country. Needless to say, "V-J Day" didn’t capture a highly anticipated embrace by long-lost lovers, but it also wasn’t staged, as many critics have claimed. In any case, the image remains an enduring symbol of America’s exuberance at the end of a long struggle.
6. The Photograph That Destroyed an Industry
"Hindenburg"
Murray Becker, 1937
Forget the Titanic, the Lusitania, and the comparatively unphotogenic accident at Chernobyl. Thanks to the power of images, the explosion of the Hindenburg on May 6, 1937, claims the dubious honor of being the quintessential disaster of the 20th century.
In the grand scheme of things, however, the Hindenburg wasn’t all that disastrous. Of the 97 people aboard, a surprising 62 survived. (in fact, it wasn’t even the worst Zeppelin crash of the 20th century. Just four years earlier, the U.S.S. Akron had crashed into the Atlantic killing more than twice as many people.) But when calculating the epic status of a catastrophe, terrifying photographs and quotable quotes ("Oh, the humanity!") far outweigh body counts.
Assembled as part of a massive PR campaign by the Hindenburg’s parent company in Germany, no fewer than 22 photographers, reporters, and newsreel cameramen were on the scene in Lakehurst, N.J. when the airship went down. Worldwide publicity of the well-documented disaster shattered the public’s faith in Zeppelins, which were, at the time, considered the safest mode of air travel available.
During the 1920s and 1930s, Zeppelins had operated regular flights, totting civilians back and forth between Germany and the Americas. But all of that stopped in 1937. The incident effectively killed the use of dirigibles as a commercially viable mode of passenger transport, ending the golden age of the airship not with a whimper, but with a horrific bang that was photographed and then syndicated around the globe.
7. The Photograph That Saved the Planet
"The Tetons – Snake River"
Ansel Adams, 1942
Some claim photography can be divided into two eras: Before Adams and After Adams. In Times B.A., for instance, photography wasn’t widely considered an art form. Rather, photographers attempted to make their pictures more "artistic" (i.e., more like paintings) by subjecting their exposures to all sorts of extreme manipulations, from coating their lenses with petroleum jelly to scratching the surfaces of their negatives with needles. Then came Ansel Adams, helping shutterbugs everywhere get over their collective inferiority complex.
Brashly declaring photography to be "a blazing poetry of the real," Adams eschewed manipulations, claiming they were simply derivative of other art forms. Instead, he preached the value of "pure photography." In an era when handheld point-and-shoot cameras were quickly becoming the norm, Adams and other landscape photographers clung to their bulky, old-fashioned large-format cameras. Ultimately, Adams’ pictures turned photography into fine art. What’s more, they shaped the way Americans thought of their nation’s wilderness and, with that, how to preserve it.
Adams’ passion for the land wasn’t limited to vistas he framed through the lens. In 1936, he accompanied his photos to Washington to lobby for the preservation of the Kings Canyon area in California. Sure enough, he was successful, and it was declared a national park.
8. The Photograph That Kept Che Alive
"The Corpse of Che Guevara"
Freddy Alborta, 1967
Sociopathic thug? Socialist luminary? Or as existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre called him, "the most complete human being of our age"? Whatever you believe, there’s no denying that Ernesto "Che" Guevara has become the patron saint of revolutionaries. Undeniably, he is a man of mythical status – a reputation that persists less because of how he lived than because of how he died.
Unenthused by his efforts to incite revolution among the poor and oppressed in Bolivia, the nation’s army (trained and equipped by the U.S. military and the CIA) captured and executed Guevara in 1967. But before dumping his body in a secret grave, they gathered around for a strategic photo op. They wanted to prove to the world that Che was dead, in hopes that his political movement would die with him. in fact, anticipating charges that the photo had been faked, Che’s thoughtful captors amputated his hands and preserved them in formaldehyde.
But by killing the man, Bolivian officials unwittingly birthed his legend. The photo, which circulated around the world, bore a striking resemblance to Renaissance paintings of Christ taken down from the cross. Even as Che’s killers preened and gloated above him (the officer on the right seems to be inadvertently pointing to a wound on Guevara’s body near where Christ’s final wound was inflicted), Che’s eerily peaceful face was described as showing forgiveness. The photo’s allegorical significance certainly wasn’t lost on the revolutionary protesters of the era. They quickly adopted "Che lives!" as a slogan and rallying cry. Thanks to this photograph, "the passion of the Che" ensured that he would live on forever as a martyr for the socialist cause.
9. The Photograph that Allowed Geniuses to Have a Sense of Humor
"Einstein with his Tongue Out"
Arthur Sasse, 1951
Arthur Sasse/AFP-Getty Images
You may appreciate this memorable portrait as much as the next fellow, but it’s still fair to wonder: "Did it really change history?" Rest assured, we think it did. While Einstein certainly changed history with his contributions to nuclear physics and quantum mechanics, this photo changed the way history looked at Einstein. By humanizing a man known chiefly for his brilliance, this image is the reason Einstein’s name has become synonymous not only with "genius," but also with "wacky genius."
So why the history-making tongue? It seems Professor Einstein, hoping to enjoy his 72nd birthday in peace, was stuck on the Princeton campus enduring incessant hounding by the press. Upon being prodded to smile for the camera for what seemed like the millionth time, he gave photographer Arthur Sasse a good look at his uvula instead. This being no ordinary tongue, the resulting photo became an instant classic, thus ensuring that the distinguished Novel Prize-winner would be remembered as much for his personality as for his brain.
10. The Photograph That Made the Surreal Real
"Dalí Atomicus"
Philippe Halsman, 1948
Philippe Halsman / Estate of Philippe Halsman
Philippe Halsman is quite possibly the only photographer to have made a career out of taking portraits of people jumping. But he claimed the act of leaping revealed his subjects’ true selves, and looking at his most famous jump, "Dalí Atomicus," it’s pretty hard to disagree.
The photograph is Halsman’s homage both to the new atomic age (prompted by physicist’ then-recent announcement that all matter hangs in a constant state of suspension) and to Dalí’s surrealist masterpiece "Leda Atomica" (seen on the right, behind the cats, and unfinished at the time). 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.
But before settling on the "Atomicus" we know today, Halsman rejected a number of other concepts for the shot. One was the idea of throwing milk instead of water, but that was abandoned for fear that viewers, fresh from the privations of World War II, would condemn it as a waste of milk. Another involved exploding a cat in order to capture it "in suspension," though that arguably would have been a waste of cats.
Halsman’s methods were as unique as they were effective. His celebrity "jump" portraits appeared on at least seven Life magazine covers and helped usher in a new – and radically more adventurous – era of portrait photography.
11. The Photograph That Lied
"Loch Ness Monster" a.k.a. "The Surgeon’s Photo"
Ian Wetherell, 1934
While strange sightings around Scotland’s murky Loch Ness date back to 565 C.E., it wasn’t until photography reached the Loch that Nessie Fever really took off. The now-legendary (and legendarily blurry) "surgeon’s photo," reportedly taken in April of 1934, fueled decades of frenzied speculation, several costly underwater searches, and a local tourism industry that rakes in several million dollars each year.
But the party almost ended in 1994, when a report was published saying that model-maker Christian Spurling admitted to faking the photo. According to Spurling’s statement, his stepfather, Marmaduke Wetherell, worked as a big game hunter and had been hired by London’s Daily Mail to find the beast. But rather than smoke out the creature, he decided to fake it. Wetherell, joined by Spurling and his son, Ian, built their own monster to float on the lake’s surface using a toy submarine and some wood putty. Ian actually took the photo, but to lend more credibility to the story, they convinced an upstanding pillar of the community – surgeon Robert Kenneth Wilson – to claim it as his own. Just goes to prove the old adage, "The camera never lies." People, on the other hand, do.
12. The Photograph That Almost Wasn’t
"Gandhi at his Spinning Wheel"
Margaret Bourke-White, 1946
"Gandhi at his Spinning Wheel," the defining portrait of one of the 20th century’s most influential figures, almost didn’t happen, thanks to the Mahatma’s strict demands. Granted a rare opportunity to photograph India’s leader; Life staffer Margaret Bourke-White was all set to shoot when Gandhi’s secretaries stopped her cold: If she was going to photograph Gandhi at the spinning wheel (a symbol for India’s struggle for independence), she first had to learn to use one herself.
But that wasn’t all. The ascetic Mahatma wasn’t to be spoken to (it being his day of silence.) And because he detested bright light, Bourke-White was only allowed to use three flashbulbs. Having cleared all these hurdles, however, there was still one more – the humid Indian weather, which wreaked havoc on her camera equipment. When time finally came to shoot, Bourke-White’s first flashbulb failed. And while the second one worked, she forgot to pull the slide, rendering it blank.
She thought it was all over, but luckily, the third attempt was successful. In the end, she came away with an image that became Gandhi’s most enduring representation. it was also among the last portraits of his life; he was assassinated less than two years later.
13. The Photograph That Foreshadowed the Future
"Le Violon d’Ingres"
Man Ray, 1924
Before there was photoshop, there was Man Ray. One of the world’s most original photographers, Ray was tireless experimenter. In fact, his work was so inventive that he eventually left the camera behind altogether, creating his surreal "Rayographs" entirely in the darkroom.
"Le Violon d’Ingres" is perhaps his best-known photograph, and one of his earliest. Like many pieces from the Dada movement (which Ray is credited with bringing to the United States), it’s a visual pun. By drawing f-holes on his model’s back, he points out the similarities between the body of a woman and the body of a violin. But it’s a literal pun, as well. Both the model’s dress and pose echo a famous painting by French artist Jean-Auguste-Dominiqe Ingres, whose hobbies were depicting female nudes and playing the violin.
More than just highbrow it, however, Ray’s work was far ahead of its time. By ridiculing a now-obsolete concept – the photographic image as literal interpretation of reality – his pictures foreshadowed our own digital revolution.
Source: http://www.neatorama.com/2007/01/02/13-photographs-that-changed-the-world/
In an ironic twist, however, that same mistake gave the few surviving exposures their famously surreal look ("slightly out of focus," Life incorrectly explained upon printing them). More than 50 years later, director Steven Spielberg would go to great lengths to reproduce the look of that "error" for his harrowing D-Day landing sequence in "Saving Private Ryan," even stripping the coating from his camera lenses to echo Capa’s notorious shots.
2. The Photograph That Gave a Face to the Great Depression
"Migrant Mother"
Dorothea Lange, 1936
As era-defining photographs go, "Migrant Mother" pretty much takes the cake. For many, Florence Owens Thompson is the face of the Great Depression, thanks to legendary shutterbug Dorothea Lange. Lange captured the image while visiting a dusty California pea-pickers’ camp in February 1936, and in doing so, captured the resilience of a proud nation facing desperate times.
Unbelievably, Thompson’s story is as compelling as her portrait. Just 32 years old when Lange approached her ("as if drawn by a magnet," Lange said). Thompson was a mother of seven who’d lost her husband to tuberculosis. Stranded at a migratory labor farm in Nipomo, Calif. her family sustained themselves on birds killed by her kids and vegetables taken from a nearby field – as meager a living as any earned by the other 2,500 workers there. The photo’s impact was staggering. Reproduced in newspapers everywhere, Thompson’s haunted face triggered an immediate public outcry, quickly prompting politicos from the federal Resettlement Administration to send food and supplies. Sadly, however, Thompson and her family had already moved on, receiving nary a wedge of government cheese for their high-profile misery. In fact, no one knew the identity of the photographed woman until Thompson revealed herself years later in a 1976 newspaper article.
3. The Photograph That Brought the Battlefield Home
"Federal Dead on the Field of Battle of First Day, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania"
Mathew Brady, 1863
As one of the world’s first war photographers, Mathew Brady didn’t start
out having as action-packed a career as you might think. A successful daguerreotypist and a distinguished gentleman, Brady was known for his portraits of notable people such as Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee. In other words, he was hardly a photojournalist in the trenches.
In fact, Brady had everything to lose by making a career move – his money, his business, and quite possibly his life. Nevertheless, he decided to risk it all and follow the Union Army into battle with his camera, saying, "A spirit in my feet said, ‘Go!’" And go he did – at least until he got a good look at the pointy end of a Confederate bayonet.
After narrowly escaping capture at the first Battle of Bull Run, Brady’s chatty feet quieted down a bit, and he began sending assistants in his place. In the span of only a few years, Brady and his team shot more than 7,000 photographs – an astounding number when you consider that developing a single plate required a horse-drawn-wagon-full of cumbersome equipment and noxious chemicals. Not exactly what you’d call "point-and-shoot."
Tethered as he was to his equine-powered darkroom and with film speeds being much slower then, Brady produced war photos that are understandably light on the action and heavy on the aftermath. Still, they mark the first time Americans were so immediately confronted with the grim realities of the battlefield.
4. The Photograph That Ended a War But Ruined a Life
"Murder of a Vietcong by Saigon Police Chief"
Eddie Adams, 1968
"Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world," AP photojournalist Eddie Adams once wrote. A fitting quote for Adams, because his 1968 photograph of an officer shooting a handcuffed prisoner in the head at point-blank range not only earned him a Pulitzer Prize in 1969, but also went a long way toward souring Americans’ attitudes about the Vietnam War.
For all the image’s political impact, though, the situation wasn’t as black-and-white as it’s rendered. What Adams’ photograph doesn’t reveal is that the man being shot was the captain of a Vietcong "revenge squad" that had executed dozens of unarmed civilians earlier the same day. Regardless, it instantly became an icon of the war’s savagery and made the official pulling the trigger – General Nguyen Ngoc Loan – its iconic villain.
Sadly, the photograph’s legacy would haunt Loan for the rest of his life. Following the war, he was reviled where ever he went. After an Australian VA hospital refused to treat him, he was transferred to the United States, where he was met with a massive (though unsuccessful) campaign to deport him. He eventually settled in Virginia and opened a restaurant but was forced to close it down as soon as his past caught up with him. Vandals scrawled "we know who you are" on his walls, and business dried up.
Adams felt so bad for Loan that he apologized for having taken the photo at all, admitting, "The general killed the Vietcong; I killed the general with my camera."
5. The Photograph That Isn’t as Romantic as You Might Think
"V-J Day, Times Square, 1945", a.k.a. "The Kiss"
Alfred Eisenstaedt, 1945
On August 14, 1945, the news of Japan’s surrender was announced in the United States, signaling the end of World War II. Riotous celebrations erupted in the streets, but perhaps none were more relieved than those in uniform. Although many of them had recently returned from victory in
Europe, they faced the prospect of having to ship out yet again, this time to the bloody Pacific.
Among the overjoyed masses gathered in Times Square that day was one of the most talented photojournalists of the 20th century, a German immigrant named Alfred Eisenstaedt. While snapping pictures of the celebration, he spotted a sailor "running along the street grabbing any and every girl in sight." He later explained that, "whether she was a grandmother, stout, thin, old, didn’t make any difference."
Of course, a photo of the sailor planting a wet one on a senior citizen wouldn’t have made the cover of Life, but when he locked lips with an attractive nurse, the image was circulated in newspapers across the country. Needless to say, "V-J Day" didn’t capture a highly anticipated embrace by long-lost lovers, but it also wasn’t staged, as many critics have claimed. In any case, the image remains an enduring symbol of America’s exuberance at the end of a long struggle.
6. The Photograph That Destroyed an Industry
"Hindenburg"
Murray Becker, 1937
Forget the Titanic, the Lusitania, and the comparatively unphotogenic accident at Chernobyl. Thanks to the power of images, the explosion of the Hindenburg on May 6, 1937, claims the dubious honor of being the quintessential disaster of the 20th century.
In the grand scheme of things, however, the Hindenburg wasn’t all that disastrous. Of the 97 people aboard, a surprising 62 survived. (in fact, it wasn’t even the worst Zeppelin crash of the 20th century. Just four years earlier, the U.S.S. Akron had crashed into the Atlantic killing more than twice as many people.) But when calculating the epic status of a catastrophe, terrifying photographs and quotable quotes ("Oh, the humanity!") far outweigh body counts.
Assembled as part of a massive PR campaign by the Hindenburg’s parent company in Germany, no fewer than 22 photographers, reporters, and newsreel cameramen were on the scene in Lakehurst, N.J. when the airship went down. Worldwide publicity of the well-documented disaster shattered the public’s faith in Zeppelins, which were, at the time, considered the safest mode of air travel available.
During the 1920s and 1930s, Zeppelins had operated regular flights, totting civilians back and forth between Germany and the Americas. But all of that stopped in 1937. The incident effectively killed the use of dirigibles as a commercially viable mode of passenger transport, ending the golden age of the airship not with a whimper, but with a horrific bang that was photographed and then syndicated around the globe.
7. The Photograph That Saved the Planet
"The Tetons – Snake River"
Ansel Adams, 1942
Some claim photography can be divided into two eras: Before Adams and After Adams. In Times B.A., for instance, photography wasn’t widely considered an art form. Rather, photographers attempted to make their pictures more "artistic" (i.e., more like paintings) by subjecting their exposures to all sorts of extreme manipulations, from coating their lenses with petroleum jelly to scratching the surfaces of their negatives with needles. Then came Ansel Adams, helping shutterbugs everywhere get over their collective inferiority complex.
Brashly declaring photography to be "a blazing poetry of the real," Adams eschewed manipulations, claiming they were simply derivative of other art forms. Instead, he preached the value of "pure photography." In an era when handheld point-and-shoot cameras were quickly becoming the norm, Adams and other landscape photographers clung to their bulky, old-fashioned large-format cameras. Ultimately, Adams’ pictures turned photography into fine art. What’s more, they shaped the way Americans thought of their nation’s wilderness and, with that, how to preserve it.
Adams’ passion for the land wasn’t limited to vistas he framed through the lens. In 1936, he accompanied his photos to Washington to lobby for the preservation of the Kings Canyon area in California. Sure enough, he was successful, and it was declared a national park.
8. The Photograph That Kept Che Alive
"The Corpse of Che Guevara"
Freddy Alborta, 1967
Sociopathic thug? Socialist luminary? Or as existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre called him, "the most complete human being of our age"? Whatever you believe, there’s no denying that Ernesto "Che" Guevara has become the patron saint of revolutionaries. Undeniably, he is a man of mythical status – a reputation that persists less because of how he lived than because of how he died.
Unenthused by his efforts to incite revolution among the poor and oppressed in Bolivia, the nation’s army (trained and equipped by the U.S. military and the CIA) captured and executed Guevara in 1967. But before dumping his body in a secret grave, they gathered around for a strategic photo op. They wanted to prove to the world that Che was dead, in hopes that his political movement would die with him. in fact, anticipating charges that the photo had been faked, Che’s thoughtful captors amputated his hands and preserved them in formaldehyde.
But by killing the man, Bolivian officials unwittingly birthed his legend. The photo, which circulated around the world, bore a striking resemblance to Renaissance paintings of Christ taken down from the cross. Even as Che’s killers preened and gloated above him (the officer on the right seems to be inadvertently pointing to a wound on Guevara’s body near where Christ’s final wound was inflicted), Che’s eerily peaceful face was described as showing forgiveness. The photo’s allegorical significance certainly wasn’t lost on the revolutionary protesters of the era. They quickly adopted "Che lives!" as a slogan and rallying cry. Thanks to this photograph, "the passion of the Che" ensured that he would live on forever as a martyr for the socialist cause.
9. The Photograph that Allowed Geniuses to Have a Sense of Humor
"Einstein with his Tongue Out"
Arthur Sasse, 1951
Arthur Sasse/AFP-Getty Images
You may appreciate this memorable portrait as much as the next fellow, but it’s still fair to wonder: "Did it really change history?" Rest assured, we think it did. While Einstein certainly changed history with his contributions to nuclear physics and quantum mechanics, this photo changed the way history looked at Einstein. By humanizing a man known chiefly for his brilliance, this image is the reason Einstein’s name has become synonymous not only with "genius," but also with "wacky genius."
So why the history-making tongue? It seems Professor Einstein, hoping to enjoy his 72nd birthday in peace, was stuck on the Princeton campus enduring incessant hounding by the press. Upon being prodded to smile for the camera for what seemed like the millionth time, he gave photographer Arthur Sasse a good look at his uvula instead. This being no ordinary tongue, the resulting photo became an instant classic, thus ensuring that the distinguished Novel Prize-winner would be remembered as much for his personality as for his brain.
10. The Photograph That Made the Surreal Real
"Dalí Atomicus"
Philippe Halsman, 1948
Philippe Halsman / Estate of Philippe Halsman
Philippe Halsman is quite possibly the only photographer to have made a career out of taking portraits of people jumping. But he claimed the act of leaping revealed his subjects’ true selves, and looking at his most famous jump, "Dalí Atomicus," it’s pretty hard to disagree.
The photograph is Halsman’s homage both to the new atomic age (prompted by physicist’ then-recent announcement that all matter hangs in a constant state of suspension) and to Dalí’s surrealist masterpiece "Leda Atomica" (seen on the right, behind the cats, and unfinished at the time). 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.
But before settling on the "Atomicus" we know today, Halsman rejected a number of other concepts for the shot. One was the idea of throwing milk instead of water, but that was abandoned for fear that viewers, fresh from the privations of World War II, would condemn it as a waste of milk. Another involved exploding a cat in order to capture it "in suspension," though that arguably would have been a waste of cats.
Halsman’s methods were as unique as they were effective. His celebrity "jump" portraits appeared on at least seven Life magazine covers and helped usher in a new – and radically more adventurous – era of portrait photography.
11. The Photograph That Lied
"Loch Ness Monster" a.k.a. "The Surgeon’s Photo"
Ian Wetherell, 1934
While strange sightings around Scotland’s murky Loch Ness date back to 565 C.E., it wasn’t until photography reached the Loch that Nessie Fever really took off. The now-legendary (and legendarily blurry) "surgeon’s photo," reportedly taken in April of 1934, fueled decades of frenzied speculation, several costly underwater searches, and a local tourism industry that rakes in several million dollars each year.
But the party almost ended in 1994, when a report was published saying that model-maker Christian Spurling admitted to faking the photo. According to Spurling’s statement, his stepfather, Marmaduke Wetherell, worked as a big game hunter and had been hired by London’s Daily Mail to find the beast. But rather than smoke out the creature, he decided to fake it. Wetherell, joined by Spurling and his son, Ian, built their own monster to float on the lake’s surface using a toy submarine and some wood putty. Ian actually took the photo, but to lend more credibility to the story, they convinced an upstanding pillar of the community – surgeon Robert Kenneth Wilson – to claim it as his own. Just goes to prove the old adage, "The camera never lies." People, on the other hand, do.
12. The Photograph That Almost Wasn’t
"Gandhi at his Spinning Wheel"
Margaret Bourke-White, 1946
"Gandhi at his Spinning Wheel," the defining portrait of one of the 20th century’s most influential figures, almost didn’t happen, thanks to the Mahatma’s strict demands. Granted a rare opportunity to photograph India’s leader; Life staffer Margaret Bourke-White was all set to shoot when Gandhi’s secretaries stopped her cold: If she was going to photograph Gandhi at the spinning wheel (a symbol for India’s struggle for independence), she first had to learn to use one herself.
But that wasn’t all. The ascetic Mahatma wasn’t to be spoken to (it being his day of silence.) And because he detested bright light, Bourke-White was only allowed to use three flashbulbs. Having cleared all these hurdles, however, there was still one more – the humid Indian weather, which wreaked havoc on her camera equipment. When time finally came to shoot, Bourke-White’s first flashbulb failed. And while the second one worked, she forgot to pull the slide, rendering it blank.
She thought it was all over, but luckily, the third attempt was successful. In the end, she came away with an image that became Gandhi’s most enduring representation. it was also among the last portraits of his life; he was assassinated less than two years later.
13. The Photograph That Foreshadowed the Future
"Le Violon d’Ingres"
Man Ray, 1924
Before there was photoshop, there was Man Ray. One of the world’s most original photographers, Ray was tireless experimenter. In fact, his work was so inventive that he eventually left the camera behind altogether, creating his surreal "Rayographs" entirely in the darkroom.
"Le Violon d’Ingres" is perhaps his best-known photograph, and one of his earliest. Like many pieces from the Dada movement (which Ray is credited with bringing to the United States), it’s a visual pun. By drawing f-holes on his model’s back, he points out the similarities between the body of a woman and the body of a violin. But it’s a literal pun, as well. Both the model’s dress and pose echo a famous painting by French artist Jean-Auguste-Dominiqe Ingres, whose hobbies were depicting female nudes and playing the violin.
More than just highbrow it, however, Ray’s work was far ahead of its time. By ridiculing a now-obsolete concept – the photographic image as literal interpretation of reality – his pictures foreshadowed our own digital revolution.
Source: http://www.neatorama.com/2007/01/02/13-photographs-that-changed-the-world/
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