1. [1825]
Nicéphore Niépce
This photograph was only discovered in 2002 and is now known to be the very first permanent photograph ever taken by Nicéphore Niépce – the father of photography. It is an image of an engraving of a man walking a horse and it was made using a technique known as heliogravure. The method involves a piece of copper covered with light sensitive bitumen. This metal plate is exposed to light and creates an image which is then transferred to paper. The image has been declared a national treasure by the French government and it sold for $392,000 at auction to the French National Library.

2. View from the Window at Le Gras [c. 1826]
Nicéphore Niépce
Like the first photograph ever taken, this was taken by Nicéphore Niépce and it is the first photograph of a real scene (the first photograph was of a painting). It was taken with a camera obscura (an ancient optical device used for entertainment and drawing) and took eight hours to expose – hence the sunlight falling on both sides of the building. The photograph is called “View from the Window at Le Gras”. This is included not just because it was the first photo of a real scene, but also because it was believed to be the very first photo ever until 2002 when an earlier photograph was found

3. James Clerk Maxwell, Thomas Sutton
Tartan Ribbon [1861]
James Clerk Maxwell, Thomas Sutton
First color photograph
This is a photograph of a tartan ribbon. It was taken by James Clerk Maxwell by photographing the ribbon three times – each time with a different color filter over the lens. The three images were then developed and projected onto a screen with three projectors using the same color filters as the initial cameras. When the three images aligned, a full color photo appeared. The three original plates are now kept in Edinburgh, where Maxwell was born.

4. Angouleme, Souhern France [1872]
Louis Ducos du Hauron
First color landscape.
This photograph was taken by Louis Arthur Ducos du Hauron who invented the subtractive (cyan, magenta, and yellow) color method of taking photographs. Louis was a French pioneer in color photography and he worked in both subtractive and additive (red, green, and blue) color. This particularly photograph is called “Landscape of Southern France”.

5. Jacques-Henri Lartigue (1894-1986)
Bichonnade Leaping [1905]
Jacques-Henri Lartigue ( )
Lartigue’s stereo photos often “stopped time,” catching people leaping in mid-air.

6. Power House Mechanic Working on Steam Pump [1920]
Lewis Hine ( )
This photo is one of the most famous of Hine’s series of "work portraits", showing working class Americans in industrial settings.

7. Monolith, The Face of Half Dome, Yosemite National Park [1927]
Ansel Adams ( )
Adams used special filters to heighten the tonal contrast in his photographs. When discussing this image of Half Dom, he stated, “I had been able to realize a desired image: not the way the subject appeared in reality but how it felt to me and how it must appear in the finished print”.

8. Behind the Gare St. Lazare, Paris [1932]
Henri Cartier-Bresson ( )
Henri Cartier-Bresson (August 22, 1908 – August 3, 2004) was a French photographer considered to be the father of modern photojournalism, 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 that followed.

9. portrait of Winston Churchill [1941]
Yousuf Karsh

10. Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima [1945]
Joe Rosenthal ( )
Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima is a historic photograph taken on February 23, 1945, by Joe Rosenthal. It depicts five United States Marines and a U.S. Navy corpsman raising the flag of the United States atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.
The photograph was the only photograph to win the Pulitzer Prize for Photography in the same year as its publication, and came to be regarded in the United States as one of the most significant and recognizable images of the war, and possibly the most reproduced photograph of all time.[1]
Of the six men depicted in the picture, three (Franklin Sousley, Harlon Block, and Michael Strank) were killed during the battle; the three survivors (John Bradley, Rene Gagnon, and Ira Hayes) became celebrities upon their identification in the photo. The picture was later used by Felix de Weldon to sculpt the USMC War Memorial, located adjacent to Arlington National Cemetery just outside Washington, D.C.

11. Gandhi at His Spinning Wheel [1947]
Margaret Bourke-White ( )
Gandhi advocated the boycott of the machine made European clothing as it caused large scale unemployment in India. He took to making hand-made cloth called Khadi that was inexpensive and suitable for poor Indians. Most importantly, it showed Indians how to be self-reliant.  Gandhi worked on his spinning wheel (called Charakha) till his last days, claiming that he felt like he was eating stolen food if he did not work.

12. Earthrise [1969] Earth emerges over lunar horizon.
Apollo – 11 mission.

13. Buzz Aldrin on the Moon [1969]
Neil Armstrong (1930- present)
On July 20, 1969, half a billion people watched as Neil Armstrong became the first person to set foot on the moon.
"That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind," he said, before imprinting his boot in the lunar dust. The televised images were relayed to Earth from a camera mounted on a leg of the Apollo 11 lunar module. Armstrong was joined on the moon by fellow crewmember Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin. Above them a third astronaut, Michael Collins, orbited in the mission's command module.
Neil Armstrong took this picture of Edwin Aldrin, showing a reflection in Aldrins visor of Armstrong and the Lunar Module. This is one of the only photographs showing Armstrong, who carried the camera, on the Moon. Aldrin later said, "My fault, perhaps, but we had never simulated this in training." (NASA photo ID AS )

14. Full Earth Showing Africa and Antarctica [1972]
Apollo 17 Mission
Apollo 17 hand-held Hasselblad picture of the full Earth. This picture was taken on 7 December 1972, as the spacecraft traveled to the moon as the last of the Apollo missions.
(Apollo 17, AS )
Also known as “The Blue Marble,” this is the first ever photo of a fully-lit earth.

15. Steve McCurry (1950-present)
Afghan Girl [1984]
Steve McCurry (1950-present)
When he wandered into an Afghan refugee camp in Pakistan in December 1984, National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry captured one of the most famous portraits the world had ever seen. The Afghan girl with the haunting green eyes captivated everyone. McCurry's portrait appeared on the cover of National Geographic in June 1985.

16. [2002]
new York Times Staff
Buzkashy race to catch a small cow riding horses at Charman Babrak (Babrak's Field) in Shah Shahid town in Kabul, Afghanistan
Pulitzer prize 2002

17. [2002]
New York Times Staff
Jay Robbins sobs as he salutes his colleague, emergency medical technician Yarnel Merino, 25, who died in the attack on the World Trade Center.
Pulitzer prize 2002