This has rekindled the debate on whether to act on such an event or simply click it because that's your job. On this note, how could we forget the photograph that won a Pulitzer for shocking the entire world and churning those deigestive fluids in the gut?
The sadness is more in this photographer's suicide note than in this picture.
"I am depressed ... without phone ... money for rent ... money for child support ... money for debts ... money!!! ... I am haunted by the vivid memories of killings and corpses and anger and pain ... of starving or wounded children, of trigger-happy madmen, often police, of killer executioners ... I have gone to join Ken (his dead friend and collegue) if I am that lucky."
This award-wininng, head-turning picture of his did leave the whole world beresk on the ethics of a photojournalist. Obviously, like any debatable issue, this picture too has two justifications. One being, how could he probably have clicked it, rather than helping the child out. The other being, how he actually hepled child in the process.
Isn't there a similar picture from India, which impacted the country in a quite a large scale. It was during the Gujarat riots and it was indeed the picture of a humble tailor pleading with his hands folded. How I ever forget that face? Would any Indian who stood through historic period of India, forget it?
This picture of Qutubuddin Ansari, in contrast to the previous picture of Kevin Carter, has only done good to the subject. He did recieve the help he intended to get while pleading through this photographer, Arko Datta's picture.
Arko Datta, is also famous another picture, which fetched him the World Press Photo Of The Year Award. This time, the misc-en-scene, being the other major disaster in India, the Tsunami.
This photograph was taken on the shores of Cuddalore, a coastal town in the Southern state of India, Tamil Nadu. If that tsunami of December 26, 2006 could tilt the Earth to few couple of centimeters, it sure has shaken that many lives.
Just like Qutubuddin Ansari, there is the Afghan Girl photograph that is one of the most famous Magazine covers of the National Geographic. Shot by Steve McCurry, this photograph of Sharbat Gula is most suitedly called 'The Afghan Mona Lisa.'
Another photograph in the current affairs that sparked several debates accorss the Press circles , is the the Time's cover on Breastfeeding.
While one section of the society was busy talking about the ethics about a photograph like this (damn the taboos) to cover a magazine, the TIME Magazine, there was certainly another, mostly mothers discussing about the pose. Well as most of us would agree, this obviously is not how a mother would her kid. Where is the attachment-factor? - was the question in their minds. But surely did breakthrough a handful of taboos - breastfeeding in Public, extended breastfeeding and most important of them all, having a graphic photograph for a Magazine cover.
Talk about photographs and Mothers on the same line; and if your mind is racing in the same direction as mine, you would certainly be flashed with this image from the Great Depressionin the United States called the Migrant Mother.
Nothing could explain Depression better. This iconic photgraph has indeeed become synonymous to depression in the years the followed.
Talk of the United States and BOOM! That Pulitzer Prize winning photograph comes in front you. I still remember the first few images that were flashed on the BBC when I was in my Eleventh Standard. We didn't have a cable connection to view channels like the BBC and hence I was beckoned by the old couple who were staying in the house below ours to watch the horrying sight. Being adolescents with loads of innocence, my brother and I feared what we thought was the beginning of a probable World War. This image by a New York Times reporter, truly can create the impact.
The above photograph were the last ones that Bill Biggart had clicked as he died below the crashing towers.
It's not a Mushroom, it's not a cloud....
What goes around, comes around, right? It was the US that started it all with their attacks on Japan's twin cities, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The photograph above shows the effect of the atom bomb dropped at Nagasaki, which was more powerful than the one dropped at Hiroshima.
Talk about war photographs, and there are several that have left strong impact in me. This is yet another lung-squeezing photograph that won the Pulitzer Prize. This 'Napalm Girl' photogrpah just completed forty years of having shot for the Associated Press during the Vietnam war on June 8.
The nine-year-old girl in the picture, recalls having ran shouting "too hot.... too hot..." With Napalm bombs accidently dropped by military planes burning her clothes off and killing two of her cousins, she tries to run away in this photograph. I can't hold my trears trying to imagine this happen to one of our kin. Tragic moments.
To break the tragedy, comes this picture of Einstein sticking his tongue out.
I have this image several times in several places, several pages, several articles but haven't bothered to find out more on the image. I have read about his snobbish side in my school textbooks, but his Beatnik side, only thanks to this photograph.
On the stream of thoughts alongside photographs of famous personalities, there was this image that lay strong in my mind. It is the picture of the Cuban Revolutionist, Che Guevara. The original black-and-white photograph later got its red version thanks to the colour he stood up for. But isn't this a very familiar image for most of us, red or not? Little wonder that it is believed to be the most famous photograph ever taken and the most reproduced in the history of photography.
Well, there is nothing that can describe the feeling when you are reminded of the ghastly attacks in Mumbai and the painful television reporting that followed. The Breaking News Phenomenon that completely took over 26/11 terror attacks might have although given the news-hungry media a lot of footage, but this image from a CCTV at the CST of the only attacker captured alive is what plays repeadtedly whenever you talk of either a terrorist attack or a terrorist.
This was the only event I followed so closely after the 9/11 blasts and was equally affected. This image, something we see almost every fortnightly (blarringly exagerrated) on any Indian news television, is probably the most viewed, used photograph taken from a Closed Circuit Camera.
Sometimes or rather all the time, such terrorist attacks makes me wonder their starting point. Was it because India and Pakistan are two different countries now? May be, may be not. But this is definitely, something I believe. May be we should have just been brothers and sisters like older times. Technically, we still are but more like the brother and sister who have been married off, having a family of their of their own. Either, we have to accept the fact that we both have different families to fend for or, we should have just not got married at all, so that the brother and sister stay together in the same space.
So how was it getting the brother and sister married off to different spaces, here I mean the times when India and Pakistan were partitioned? Tough.
Although, there might be several images that the repetoire of Internet might fetch you, it is this image, this photograph that sums it all up for me. The Genocide that followed the partition and the emotions in the air parting their land, family et all.
Dwelling on this emotion of love and what a partition could probably do it, I can just write enough on long-distance romantic relationships. I have been away from my then boyfriend working in differeny cities and the now husband too for a brief period and I write a book on how painful it can be. The first kiss you share, when you meet up, can make you fall in love all over again, no matter how old the relationship or you are. This is one such photograph of the recent times that caught my, actually most of our, attention.
It surely made headlines only because it was a same-sex kiss. I just saw love and the long-distance having cut short.
Today, social network sites seem to rule the internet. Its not enough if you can click good photographs, get them publishes, win awards, they need to go viral on the networking sites to actually make it big. And one such picture that touched my heart was of the just-born's hands that got tucked into the surgeon's palms during the delivery.
The baby had to be given aneasthesia for the doctor to be able to take his fingers of the baby's tightly clenched palm.
Last but not the least, I would like to share this image currently seen on the Indian Rupee Note, is the one that I have seen the maximum number of times.
This photograph was shot just a couple of hours before Mahatma Gandhi was assasinated. It is sad that this widely used image was not seen my Gandhi himself.
There might be plenty of famous photographs other than the ones that I have shared here. Also, a few of them here might not even as famous as the rest. Nevertheless, this post is just a humble attempt to put together photographs that have had an impact in my life.
