Ten photographs that changed the world

You've all missed the point about this series: they are meant to be photos that achieved change, not photos that simply recorded events.

A photo can be iconic without changing public perceptions and that would not qualify, so the father and son in the cross-fire in Palestine, or the inmates at Auschwitz, or a girl putting a flower in a soldier's rifle, or Che Guevara's face might be iconic and even carry a message but they did not cause people to act to change things.

I'm not sure cannonballs at Balaclava really qualifies, but I suppose they wanted something early. On the other hand, the dying militiaman probably does qualify regardless of whether it was staged.

Also, the Pulitzer prize is for journalism, not art. So it was not crass to award it for the photo of the dying child any more than it is crass to include it in this list.

One glaring omission, that might have put a bit more of a positive spin on this otherwise sad collection was

the first X-ray photograph, of Mrs Roentgen's hand in 1895.

Nothing has changed.

It gets worse day by day , from the very few which is pictured itself we can see it.

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- Listen to Many...Speak to a Few -

i saw this picture (no. 9) a couple of years ago.. it still breaks my heart. i believe the photographer committed suicide....

-=The desire to do what you shouldn'T is the very desire that defines Humanity=-

Gica...your daughter is beautiful...

Picture 8...shows that there is still hope for humans

I agree with Alexa, 100% true...

Thanks Gica! nice song by my "paisano" =) and happy name day to your baby!

Brit, it is a really pretty picture, and qataraynaku's first picture is also soul-touching!

Thank you, those pictures make days brighter, as they show there is hope...

See I completely glossed over the fact. I like Cohen, a lot of muslims might have perceived him as another jew that pokes fun at them through Ali G and Borat but I think he does a decent service to society. Indeed, homophobia is the one thing I see Palestinian and Israeli radicals agreeing on, that is, I believe they have similar twisted "solutions" for the "problem" in mind :P

its a series of photos of a father and son

they are stuck on the street in the midst of cross fire

and they get shot

I can dig it up but i don't want to post it

its just too disturbing...

...in the movie "Bruno".

Unfortunately, either they really aint working out with their conversations or just that Bruno was in the middle (I mean in the middle of both of them interviews) of them trying to pull out a humor on their "conflicts" with his gay parade.

"Everything in this book may be wrong." Illusions: The Adventures of The Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach

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...they already dedicated the movie to Carl Sagan, who just died a year or two before the movie was shown in the US theatres.

"Everything in this book may be wrong." Illusions: The Adventures of The Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach

Children in a slum neighbourhood of New Delhi take part in an outdoor class as part of a mobile study programme. It is funded by the Indian charity Salaam Baalak, which offers help to street children. The United Nations is marking International Literacy Day today..

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Gracias Donosa! Please take the song "Maria" from Santana as dedication from me. My daughter name's Maria and today is her Name Day...

I agree with that saying "a picture paints a thousand words", but it paints everything in different perspectives. For me, number 9 is a call for help, for th photographer was a Pulitzer, for the Pulitzer judges, a dying child is art. Sick!

For me, those pictures remind me of all the sadness we bring to this world, the lack of humanity in a lot of people. I would like to see a top 10 of pictures that have made people TRULY smile or feel good.

Gica_contra: Congratulations! your baby is beautiful!! Newborns always make me wonder.... when did we lose that innocence?

That the wrong usually far outweighs the right. There are way more people starving than living in luxury. I will agree however that the news reports mainly about the bad and rarely the good but there's little interest in the noble deeds of individuals when their governments systematically and habitually commit heinous crimes.

There's plenty of examples of Israeli "knights" that go around standing in the way of Israeli bulldozers and helping the oppressed. I too think these people should be given more of a voice in the Arab & muslim press, and more money should be given to them because they are in a position to change things, rather than idiots that blow themselves up in supermarkets. Revenge achieves nothing. I read an article about one such gentleman on the front page of a western paper when I was flying in here. I rarely ever see anything about that on Al-Jazeera. Indeed, Israeli and Palestinian kids in the same classroom would be non-news if it wasn't for the context of violence and hatred. Because of the contextual background we are aware of, that would be a picture of profound beauty...

Someone brought up that the list is biased and excludes many other conflicts and images of suffering, but these are the emblematic ones, they artistically embody the harshest of our reality, and summarize our achievements since the advent of photography. Furthermore shock is always more profound than beauty. You sometimes have to meditate on the beauty of things. Shock is immediate. Also, fear is stronger than any love or hate.

Indeed, from only a mile above, this looks like a rock teeming with ants entangled in vile chaos. Things that seem majestic to us are "close to nil" on a cosmic scale. But we don't live in space. After all, this sad blue rock is all we've got.

Both types of images serve a purpose. Yours will bring hope.

However, the pictures posted are reality. All too often we see the world through rose coloured spectacles and blot out the horror because it may not directly affect us.

Thanks Adey, I really enjoyed that. So poignant and moving.

'Our imagined self-importance' on the pale blue dot.

Indeed.

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His lectures in "Surely you must be joking Mr. Feynman" are riddled with absurdist humour and are just a general pleasure to read even if you take no interest in the underlying mathematical geekery. I don't claim to understand quantum physics either hehe, but I like a fun read. He wrote a couple of other great books, I liked his style and insight. And his overwhelming humanism. "Tuva or bust!" is a real nice travelogue of his journey into a remote region of modern day Russia to chase down the now already popularized "throat singers" of the area. To use a popular meme, "I think Richard was a pretty cool guy, eh dabbled with sub-atomic particles and didn't afraid of anything" :D

re Feynman , I heard of him around the time he was investigating the 1st space shuttle disaster. He seemed interesting although I don't know much about him or his work - I don't have a scientific background so I find ths science of 'small stuff' ie quantum mechanics, a bit

'out there' and too complex to get my head around.

"Deaths in the Bible. God - 2,270,365

not including the victims of Noah's flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, or the

many plagues, famines, fiery serpents, etc because no specific numbers

were given. Satan - 10."

To pick & choose what you stare at when you're among the chosen 5% that have everything in the world & more. We don't obviously share the same priorities. I'd rather see the truth and not some fabulous fantasies. And I'd never call you a "sodomite" because you think different. I guess it comes down to upbringing...

Alexas right. Its a sad statement on this world we live in if this is the top ten of life altering moments. For me photos like Gica`s make life worthwhile.

Crapcircle. your the most depressing, cynical sod Ive ever heard/read. Go listen to some Leonard Cohen, It might cheer you up!

I thought the old pothead was still alive and kicking. Ahh damn, are you a Feynman fan too? I liked him even better than Sagan.

Actually he died in Dec 1996 - nearly 13 yrs ago, how time has flown!

span style="font-style: italic">"Deaths in the Bible. God - 2,270,365

not including the victims of Noah's flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, or the

many plagues, famines, fiery serpents, etc because no specific numbers

were given. Satan - 10."

was it THAT big a deal?

I would have chosen the moment of impact on Twin Towers...

he died of cancer about 5 years ago

"Deaths in the Bible. God - 2,270,365

not including the victims of Noah's flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, or the

many plagues, famines, fiery serpents, etc because no specific numbers

were given. Satan - 10."

News to me.

"A mote of dust, suspended on a sunbeam". I grew up on Sagan. I liked him quite a bit, up until his "I want to believe they're out there" BS.

Just for you then, watch this video.

The late great scientist and writer Carl Sagan narrates from one his passages, entitled 'The Pale Blue Dot'

Brings a tingle to the spine, enjoy.

&feature=fvst

"Deaths in the Bible. God - 2,270,365

not including the victims of Noah's flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, or the

many plagues, famines, fiery serpents, etc because no specific numbers

were given. Satan - 10."

6 & 8 really touching pic.

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सोनम दि नेपाली बाबु

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Thank you sandeepkadian and diamond.... I'm still away from her... :(

Gica contra, you're so right.

She's perfect mashallah.

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Gica that's really sweet, so is your daughter.

"Hurricanes are like women : when they come, they're wet and wild, but when they leave they take your house and car."

The picture who change my world almost four years ago....

My newborn daughter....I was 4000 km away....

"Everything in this book may be wrong." Illusions: The Adventures of The Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach

Adey, I love that picture. Everything about space fascinates me. I would love to up into space one day.

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They certainly make you sit back and think about life... the one with the missionary and the famine child was really sad....

Another image that's really stuck in my mind is of the evacuation from the US embassy during the fall of saigon, A long queue of people waiting to get into a waiting helicopter on the rooftop. I don't know how to post pics here else would have. It was interesting to see Viet-congs resisting the might of US and capturing Saigon in the end.

"Hurricanes are like women : when they come, they're wet and wild, but when they leave they take your house and car."

Found it on this page, from 1968 when Apollo 8 circled the moon as a test run for the later moon landing the following year.

http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=

"Deaths in the Bible. God - 2,270,365

not including the victims of Noah's flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, or the

many plagues, famines, fiery serpents, etc because no specific numbers

were given. Satan - 10."

i think i just saw The Klan member at the end!

no.9 reduces me to tears every time I look at it.

Thr poor child was trying to crawl to a feeding centre.

I read that the photographer did not help the child (apart from chasing the vulture away) so I'm not surprised that he committed suicide shortly afterwards. I wouldn't be able to live with myself either if I had walked away from that child. I could NEVER have done that.

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no.1 is credited as the first photograph ever taken.

I like Roger Fenton's Crimea War photographs as seen in no.2.

On a personal level, no.7 really sticks in my mind from that time.

But I am surprised that they did not include the most famous photo that changed the way we look at the world, both figuratively and literally, namely the photo of the earth breaking over the moon's horizon.

"Deaths in the Bible. God - 2,270,365

not including the victims of Noah's flood, Sodom and Gomorrah, or the

many plagues, famines, fiery serpents, etc because no specific numbers

were given. Satan - 10."

don't be swayed by our overwhelming savagery. We have hypermarkets too!

Nice post as always mr. brit. I had to write an essay on number 9 in elementary English composition. First time a teacher told me I chose the wrong major, they'd later repeat that to me on a regular basis.

Yes, brit, soldiers are professional killers with limited human resentments.

My boss was a full bird US Colonel. He always said that the picture posted by you showed the discipline and values he admired in the South Koreans...

Brit,

These pictures will fetch a snivel in many peoples' heart across the globe and remain grim...

Some Pictures leave an enduring image in our minds...These images as the title says helped change things..

I remember No 7 because we marched on the US embassy after it was printed. I also recall the one MD posted. They help mobilze people...

Alexa , have you seen the earth movie (2009) , that was very impressive, showing all of earths amazing places and at the same time ,showing what we doing to it , which is nothing good for the most part. But still the message was something like don't give up , we can make a change or so !!!

"Love"? Alexa, the pictures will be removed by the mods. Love is 'haram', killing is not.

most of them are disturbing pictures , I have seen one time a picture on BCC news and it won some prize too. A little girl was stuck in a mud slide more then wast deep and they could not get her out of it. So they stood by her until she died for over a day or so.

That bothered me for days and days! how sad , I would have not been able to stand there and see the little girl die like that :(

This one is my All-Time favorite:

February 1, 1968. South Vietnam police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan shots a young man, whom he suspects to be a Viet Kong soldier.

Excellent. Sadly we have become immune to such images :(

1980: A boy and a missionary/Mike Wells, United Kingdom. Mike didn't want this picture to be entered as competition as he felt it wasn't right and was against of any competition with people starving to death.

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The photo by carol guzy showing how a 2 year old Kosovar refugee, is passed through a barbed wire fence into the hands of grandparents at a camp run by United Arab Emirates in Kukes, Albania.

As Paul Bear once said "There's no substitute for guts."

no:7

no:9

touching photoes

no.9 made me cry...

5, 7 and 9 are very touching, but this is my favourite:

&feature=related

numbers 7 and 9 are so sad. especially number 9. :(

No.8!

The anonymous hero of the twentieth century...Respect man! Ni hao!

he commited suicide few weeks after winning the pulitzer price. i just didn't mentioned it because the thread already did.

Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of people know that.

I don't know why Birtexpat believes that the telegraph is the best news paper in the world. Specially when publishing this pictures are completely bias, Have they forgot the other type of genocides.

HAVE YOU FORGOT THE GENOCIDE OF THE JEWS duirng WW2 and many other races by the hand of the NAZIS. I guess you don't believe it did happen.

The slaughter of the thousand of Asians in the hands of the Japanese Imperial army?

About The Russian gulags?

About the Cambodia killing fields?

About the Bosnia and Herzegovina concentration camps?

About the Rwanda genocide, and the current genocide of the Christian Sudanese communities by the Arabs militia?

It is not about what your favorite news paper clipping, a. It is not about your religion is about humanity not learning shit and repeating the same bullshit over and over.

The provocation of Famine and Genocide,

Famine, Democide and genocide

Are politically tools used by abusive and repulsive governments. Think about that MR.

I wish you read the comments that people post it at the end of the article.

Maybe you would reconsider it.

Do Remember this:

Statistics Of Pakistan's Democide

Estimates, Calculations, And Sources*

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP8.HTM

Pakis are not that Innocent after all.

Graduated from Xavier Institute for Higher learning.

I guess humour, just like beauty is in the eye of the beholder...or understanding, in this case. By Alexa ( as I do not plagiarize)

So sad images....

No 9 is my favourite

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Me no malum sir

it has changed the world indeed....

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"a t a y a j u d ! ! !"

Dsram there are different stories behind that photograph some say he commited suicide.

Aana free, jaana free,

Pakde gaye tho khana free.

my favorite pic is No 1

Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of people know that.

the child is crawling toward a UN food camp located a kilometer away.

no one knows what happened to the child, including the photographer who left the scene as soon as the photo was taken. he later confided to friends that he wished he had intervened. journalists at the time were warned not to touch famine victims for fear of disease.

Oh, people can come up with statistics to prove anything, Kent. 14% of people know that.

what a sad images........

Let It Be.....

the most significant 5 and 7

"Everything in this book may be wrong." Illusions: The Adventures of The Reluctant Messiah by Richard Bach

9

All of the photos are awesome in showing the ugliness of the human soul. But its 180 years, brit, not 120.

there are lots of reports which says No.3 has been photoshopped...though i dunno the reality..

we become Inhuman..(Man to Animals).......A Bitter Truth, we should accept.

I liked the mushroom cloud the most.

"Ali Baba and 40 thieves" are now "Ali Baba and 30 thieves" ; 10 were laid off.

No. 9 always impacts me the most

" Pele good, Maradona better, George BEST"

8 is awesome

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Yep. 7 and 8.

The sudanese toddler picture was depressing ..

No 7 has always been my favourite..