Historically Important Photographs

Nick Ut, Napal Girl (1972), Pulitzer Prize wining Photograph (1973) Nine-year-old Kim Phuc was with a group of civilians trying to flee the village when the planes mistook them for soldiers and bombed them with naplam. Ut captured Kim Phuc and others running out of the bombed village. She was naked from having her clothes burned off.

Eddie Adams 1968, Vietnam

Robert H. Jackson, Shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald, (1963) 1964 Pulitzer Prize Winning Photograph

Richard Drew captured this image of a man falling from the World Trade Center in New York after the terror attacks on September 11, 2001. Its publication led to a public outcry from people who found the photograph insensitive. Drew sees it differently. On the 10th anniversary of the attacks, he said he considers the falling man an "unknown soldier" who he hopes "represents everyone who had that same fate that day." It's believed that upwards of 200 people fell or jumped to their deaths after the planes hit the towers.

 Jeff Widener, Tank Man, 1989 Following a crackdown that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of student demonstrators in Beijing, a lone Chinese protester steps in front of People's Liberation Army tanks in Tiananmen Squarein 1989. At least five photographers captured the event, which became a symbol of defiance in the face of oppression. Charlie Cole, working for Newsweek, won a World Press Photo Award for his version of the image. The identity and fate of the "Tank Man" remains unclear.

Two black American athletes have made history at the Mexico Olympics by staging a silent protest against racial discrimination. The 1968 Olympics Black Power salute was an act of protest by the African-American athletes Tommie Smith and John Carlos during their medal ceremony at the 1968 Summer Olympics in the Olympic Stadium in Mexico City. In his autobiography, Silent Gesture, Tommie Smith stated that the gesture was not a "Black Power" salute, but a "human rights salute". The event is regarded as one of the most overtly political statements in the history of the modern Olympic Games.

Malcolm Wilde Browne, “The Ultimate Protest” (Burning Monk), 1963 Image depicting the dignified yet horrific death by fiery suicide of Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc. The Buddhist majority in South Vietnam reached its breaking point under the repressive Catholic. Buddhists staged street demonstrations and memorial services for the victims. Two elderly monks committed ritual suicide in protest against the Diem regime.

The journey of the image …. http://www.ap.org/explore/the-burning-monk/

Kevin Carter, 1993 Carter's winning photo shows a heart-breaking scene of a starving child collapsed on the ground, struggling to get to a food center during a famine in the Sudan in 1993. In the background, a vulture stalks the emaciated child. Haunted by the horrific images from Sudan, Carter committed suicide in 1994 soon after receiving the award.

Lawrence Beitler, 1930 The lynching of two young black men accused of raping a white girl. They were hanged by a mob of 10,000. (This accusation was subsequently found to be a lie). Lynching photos were made into postcards to show off civic pride and white supremacy, but the tortured bodies and grotesquely happy crowds ended up angering and revolting as many as they scared.

O. J. Simpson murder trial O.J. Simpson murder trial. Former football star was charged with the murder of his ex-wife and her lover. On June 17th 1994, Simpson fled the police in what was the television event for a generation, but taken into custody. Mugshot which ran on both Time and Newsweek’s covers. Time’s version = darker edited version courtesy of its photoillustrator Matt Mahurin (an unaltered photo appeared inside). Many observed that by darkening Simpson’s face, Time had emphasized his skin color (and therefore his race), gave him a more “menacing” appearance and feral look.

Jean Gaumy, 1986 Iran’s female militia practicing firing. 1986, at the height of Iran-Iraq War, and the photos were a way of saying “even our women were prepared to fight and die for us.” 

Alberto Korda, Photographer, 1960 Jim Fitzpatrick, Graphic Artist Leader of revolutionary struggles in Cuba and Bolivia – was a main player in Fidel Castro overthrowing the Cuban president and gaining powe. It is perhaps the most reproduced, recycled and ripped off image of the 20th Century.

Steve McCurry, 1985 Afghan girl Taken in a Pakistani refugee camp during Soviet occupation of Afganistan

Javier Manzano, 2013 Pulitzer Prize Winner Two rebel soldiers in Syria guard their position in the Karmel Jabl neighborhood of Aleppo as light streams through more than a dozen holes made by bullets and shrapnel in the tin wall behind them. Coverage of the Civil War in Syria.

Tyler Hicks, 2014 Pulitzer Prize Winner – Breaking News Photography A woman tried to shelter children from gunfire by Somali militants at the Westgate mall in Nairobi, Kenya, in an attack that killed more than 70 people. Tyler Hicks made this photo from a floor above, in an exposed area where the police feared for his safety. (Tyler Hicks, The New York Times - September 23, 2013)