Worlds best photos ever
Blog - 10 most famous photos of all time & their history
Photography was invented nearly two hundred years ago. Ever since, its capacity to capture moments has continued to amaze and has propelled the medium to the forefront of the art world. Artalistic has curated a selection of ten of the most famous photos ever taken.
View from the Window at Gras - Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, 1827This is the very first photograph ever taken. The scientist Nicéphore Niépce (1765-1833) was enthralled by the burgeoning craze for Lithography and decided to place polished pewter plates coated with a light sensitive chemical called bitumen of Judea inside a camera obscura. Niépce took this famous picture from his house in Saône-et-Loire. The exposure took eight hours. Once the plate was removed from the camera he used a mixture of lavender oil and white petroleum to develop the image.
Man Jumping the Puddle – Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1932The French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson took this famous photo behind the Saint-Lazare train station in Paris. Cartier-Bresson is known for coining the term “the decisive moment,” which refers to a photographer’s capacity to capture a subject at precisely the right instant and in doing so shattering normal life to retrieve a transcendent moment. The man jumping over the water can be compared to a dancer whose silhouette is reflected most gracefully in a puddle. An enigmatic, grey background juxtaposes this elegant figure. The image also perfectly reflects Roland Barthes’ theory about the punctum and stadium, which he explains in his book Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography (1980). In this seminal book he defines punctum as the features of a photograph that produce or convey a meaning without invoking any recognizable symbolic system. This kind of meaning is unique to the response of the individual viewer of the image. The punctum punctuates the stadium - historical, social or cultural meanings extracted via semiotic analysis - and as a result pierces its viewer.
To allow the punctum effect, the viewer must repudiate all knowledge. Barthes insists that the punctum is not simply the sum of desires projected into the photograph. Instead, it arises from details that are unintended or uncontrolled by the photographer, namely the detail that attracts the eye and the general impression that emanates from a photograph.
We don’t know the names of the subjects in this famous photo or the name of the photographer. This image of workers taking a daredevil’s lunch break at the top of a skyscraper certainly makes the viewer dizzy but it also brings their attention to the very risky life the workers building the Rockefeller Center lead. In the first half of the 20th century, dozens of workers died after fatal falls during the construction of various skyscrapers.
V-J Day in Times Square - Alfred Eisenstaedt, 1945In the aftermath of World War II, Alfred Eisenstaedt took to the streets of New York's Time Square to immortalize celebrations marking the end of the war.
This is one of the most famous photos of the 20th century; however while some critics believe it to be capturing a loving reunion between a sailor and a nurse others see it as sexual assault. The latter interpretation resonates with the present day #MeToo movement.
Margaret Bourke-White, an iconic female photographer from the 20th century, immortalized Gandhi several times and is well known for this famous photo that was taken two years before his death. This picture was first published in the American magazine Life. After Gandhi's assassination, on January 30, 1948, Bourke-White’s photographs of Gandhi skyrocketed in price and took an important place in art history.
The Burning Monk - Malcom Browne, 1963On June 11, 1963, in a street in Saigon, Vietnam, the monk Thich Quang Duc immolated himself as an act of protest over discrimination toward Buddhists by the South Vietnamese government.
During a demonstration, he asked to be doused with gasoline and demanded that he be set on fire. Associated Press photographer Malcolm Browne was on the scene at the time and captured a stunning image, a world-famous photo that also won a Pulitzer Prize. The American fusion-rap band Rage Against The Machine used it for the cover of their 1992 self-titled album.
The Vietnamese photographer Nick Ut captured this chilling photograph on June 8, 1972. During the Vietnam conflict, the American army often used napalm during their missions, however this time one of the planes mistakenly hit the village of Trang Bang, wounding many civilians. Nick Ut brought the 9-year-old girl in this photograph to an American hospital where she was saved. After 17 skin grafts, the young girl went on to live a full life and even had two children.
Afghan Girl - Steve McCurry, 1984Steve McCurry took this famous photograph during a trip to Afghanistan in 1984 to document the migration of Afghan refugees.
This picture of 17-year-old Sharbat Gula was taken in the refugee camp of Nasir Bagh. It became the symbol of the Afghan struggle and was featured on the front page of the National Geographic newspaper in June 1985.
This famous photo of a young Chinese man standing in front of tanks during the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising made Jeff Widener the most famous photojournalist of the late 20th century. The day before taking this photograph Widener had been injured by a stone and was told to stay in his hotel, while all the other American and European journalists took refuge at the airport. Widener took the opportunity to photograph the uprising from his hotel window. He ran out of film and asked an Australian tourist staying in the hotel to borrow a roll of film. Widener used this roll to take this famous photograph, which is now widely held to be one of the most recognized photos ever taken and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1990.
Javier Bauluz was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for this famous photograph, which underlines the large disparity between social classes in the world. This image depicts two tourists passively sitting in front of the lifeless body of a migrant who was trying to reach Europe.
We hope that you enjoyed our selection of the 10 most famous photos of all time. Feel free to browse our curated collection of photographs, paintings, sculptures, drawings and limited edition prints. Thank you and see you soon for the latest news from the art world.
The 100 best photographs ever taken without photoshop / Bright Side
Nature and humankind are both great artists, and when they join forces, amazing masterpieces can be produced.
Today Bright Side has collected for you works in which the combined efforts of mother nature and photographic artists have captured magic moments showing the wondrous diversity of modern life and the natural world.
This is what happens if you throw hot tea into the air in Arctic
A galactic tennis ball
Modern dykes, windmills and highways in the Netherlands
A temple covered in ash from the Ontake volcanic eruption, Japan
Two worlds divided, New York, USA
The Supermoon in a radio telescope
Just an ordinary day’s building — catching a cloud
Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-sung, North Korea’s founder
A blue universe in Japan
Spider webs in Abernethy forest, Scotland
Now I can finally get a tan
Volcanic eruption in Iceland
An eagle soaring over a lake in Canada
An Italian beach
The scarlet eyes of a warty tree frog, Costa Rica
Yunnan, China
Hotaru Ika firefly squids, Japan
Namib Desert, Africa
Flamingos gathered in the shape of a flamingo, Yucatan Peninsula
Lake Natron, Tanzania
Forests without end, Russia
Rapeseed fields in Luoping, China
The sea-like dunes of the Namib Desert
Westerdok District, Amsterdam
Beehive
Frosted trees
Hello there, sister
The chosen one
Holiday village near Arkhangelsk, Russia
Birdy hurricane
Alien invasion in Charlotte, USA
On target
Rango plays guitar
Waterspout on Lake Victoria, Uganda
Red cardinal levitating
A cargo train at Morant’s Curve
Winter’s abrupt arrival, Mari El, Russia
Selfie with comet, 290,000,000 miles from Earth (courtesy of the
Rosetta probe)Autumn and winter meet in Colorado, USA
Fishman, Mahabalipuram, India
Angels
A ghost town, San Francisco, USA
Autumn and winter meet in Miklukhin, Rostov region, Russia
Unknown author
Highly artistic make-up
A toothy sea
That’s how they mine diamonds.
Mirny, Yakutia, RussiaMan with Flashlight on Ice creates Beauty
Dog sledding in Greenland
Giant wave illusion
Sleeping
Long exposure of a plane taking off
Yoga by the sea
It’s just a crayfish in the bucket but it looks like it’s capturing the world
Jeep ghost
Dancers on paper, USA
The Royal British Navy puts on a show
A road on ice, Chukotka Peninsula, Russia
A Statue of Christ covered with corals at the bottom of the Atlantic near Key Largo island, USA
The aftermath of a flood in Ljubljana, Slovenia
Explosion illusion
The One
Tiny ants surrounded a drop of honey, Malaysia
Sky lantern festival in Chiang Mai, Thailand
Kaindy Lake appeared just 100 years ago due to a severe earthquake in Kazakhstan
50 shades of grey
A train on the Kazakh steppe.
View from plane windowSpectacular ice formations on a mountaintop in Slovenia
Sunrise in Bushy Park, London
Moravian fields, Czech Republic
Cherries under the water
China’s Gansu Province
Tractor among almond fields, California
Amitabha Buddha Day, Vietnam
Lake Retba, Senegal
My neighbor Totoro
The gifts of the Earth
Moon rising above Madrid, Spain
Eiffel Tower from the bottom
Fickle moods
Residential area in Hong Kong
Tianzi Mountain (China) — inspiration for the landscapes of Pandora in
AvatarSurfing
An outsider in a red hat
An autumn forest. 50% Downloaded
The Freezing Athabaska River in Jasper National Park, Canada
Times Square, New York, USA. A view from below
A dragon
A boat cuts through newly-formed ice in Marion Bay
Kallur lighthouse on picturesque cliffs on Kalsoy island, Faroe Islands
It must be wonderful having a secluded home all to yourself — and some land to plant potatoes
Wingardium Leviosa
Snow express
Sunrise in the Kingdom of Bagan, Myanmar
Annual base jumping contest in Norway
Breaking the sound barrier
Glacier Lake in Banff National Park, Canada
Preview photo credit Fred Johns
Photo of the century: the best shots of all time according to Time magazine
Impressions
Philip Halsman.
Dali Anatomikus, 1948
© 100photos.time.com
Author Anastasia Novikova
06 January 2017
In the fall of 2016, Time magazine named the 100 most significant photographs of all time. RBC Style carefully reviewed the pictures, which took the creators of the project three years to select, and tells the story of nine rare shots. nine0003
Skyscraper Dinner
1932
© 100photos.time.com
Eleven men dine, chat and smoke. Everything would be fine, but they do it, sitting on a steel beam at the level of the 69th floor above Manhattan. It was this scene that was captured by an unknown photographer in the Lunch at the Skyscraper image. The shot was taken on September 29, 1932 as staged, but with real workers, and a couple of days later it was published in the Sunday supplement to the New York Herald Tribune. The photo was taken during the Great Depression, when desperate people were ready for any job and climbed to gigantic heights without any insurance.
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Advertising on RBC www.adv.rbc.ru
Dorothea Lange Migrant Mother
1936
© 100photos.time.com
The famous shot was taken in March 1936, at the height of the Great Depression. Dorothea Lange, who worked as a reporter, captured Florence Thompson. “I saw a mother who had lost all hope, I was drawn to her like a magnet,” Lange recalled in 1960. “I took five pictures, each time getting closer to her, but I didn’t even ask her name. She said that she was 32 years old and that she and her children ate frozen vegetables from the fields and birds, which they sometimes managed to shoot. That day, she just sold the tires from her car to buy some food.” 10 March 19For 36 years, the San Francisco News printed a photo of Florence in the article "Degraded, Hungry, Hopeless—Crop Harvesters Live in Poverty.
" A picture of a strong unknown woman instantly spread throughout the country, and soon around the world. And the original photograph went under the hammer in 2005 for $296,000.
Yevgeny Khaldei "Victory Banner over the Reichstag"
1945
© 100photos.time.com
“This is what I have been waiting for 1400 days,” Soviet photographer Yevgeny Khaldei admitted. The war correspondent took his world-famous photograph on May 2, 1945. By that time, street fighting had already ended in Berlin, and the city was completely occupied by Soviet troops. Khaldei asked the first soldiers he met to help take photographs. Soon he filmed two cassettes with them. The banner depicted in the picture, Yevgeny Khaldei brought with him. It is curious that it was sewn from a red tablecloth, which the photographer "borrowed" on one of his visits to Moscow in the dining room of Photochronicles.
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Alfred Eisenstadt Victory Day over Japan in Times Square
1945
© 100photos.time.com
In the summer of 1945, photographer Alfred Eisenstadt took a random shot that was destined to become iconic. A sailor who found out about the end of the war with Japan got into his frame. “He ran all over the street, grabbed all the women he saw - it didn’t matter if they were old, portly or slender. I ran in front of him with my Leica, turning around and trying to take a picture, but I didn’t like any of them. And then, suddenly - like a flash - I saw that he grabbed something white. I turned and pressed the button at the very moment when he kissed the nurse, ”the photographer later said. A week later, Eisenstadt's picture was published in Life magazine, where it took up a whole page. The frame has become iconic, and for many Americans has become a symbol of peace.
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Philippe Halsman Dali Anatomikus
1948
© 100photos.time.com
Philippe Halsman is called the founder of surrealism in photography. His famous "Jump" series has become a classic of photography. It includes more than 200 portraits of famous people who jumped in the frame. One of the heroes of the series was Salvador Dali. Halsman took six hours to complete the Dali Anatomikus shot. An easel and a painting were suspended from a fishing line from the ceiling, a chair in the foreground was held by the photographer's wife, and two assistants tossed cats and splashed a bucket of water. “When a person jumps, his attention is mainly directed to the act of jumping, the mask falls off and his true face appears,” Philippe Halsman explained the choice of subject for the photographs. nine0003
Richard Avedon Dovima and the Elephants
1955
© 100photos.
time.com
In 1955, Richard Avedon filmed an advertisement for the new Christian Dior collection. As a model, he chose his favorite Dovima and decided to capture her against the backdrop of elephants. Avedon wanted to convey the symmetry of fragility and power, light and dark. The photograph of "Dovima and the Elephants" was taken at the Cirque d'Hiver. And the dresses of the model were created by a young and then little-known designer Yves Saint Laurent, who worked as an assistant to Christian Dior. nine0003
Harry Benson Pillow Fight
1964
© 100photos.time.com
On the evening of January 16, 1964, photographer Harry Benson took one of the most famous pictures of the Liverpool Four. He captured the members of The Beatles at a pillow fight in a Paris hotel room, Hotel George V. In general, Benson did not plan to photograph the Beatles.
He wanted to shoot a "serious story" in Africa. “I saw myself as a serious journalist and didn’t want to make a rock and roll story,” Benson said. But the case nevertheless brought him to Paris, where at that moment the Liverpool Four were located. The "pillow fight" caught on film began spontaneously. Such was the reaction of the musicians to the announcement that their single “I Want to Hold Your Hand” had reached number one on the American pop charts. nine0003
Neil Armstrong Man in the Moon
1969
© 100photos.time.com
The 1969 photograph was taken by Neil Armstrong himself. The first man to walk on the moon captured his Apollo 11 crewmate, astronaut Buzz Aldrin. “Most of the time, Neil had the camera, and I was the subject of these wonderful shots, because each of his shots was simply magnificent,” Aldrin later recalled.
Photographing was not among the priority tasks of the astronauts, however, the pictures became historical and remained in the memory of mankind. nine0003
Annie Leibovitz Demi Moore
1991
© 100photos.time.com
In 1991, Annie Leibovitz photographed Demi Moore nude for the cover of Vanity Fair when the actress was seven months pregnant. For the beginning of the nineties, the picture turned out to be a real shock and made a splash. The issue of the magazine went on sale in special packaging envelopes. They hid Moore's naked body, leaving only her eyes open. The cover of Vanity Fair with naked Moore became the most successful for the glossy magazine of all time. And the audience of the issue amounted to more than 100 million readers. Annie Leibovitz herself, however, was quite strict with her photographic work. “I don't think it's a good photo in and of itself.
This is the cover of a magazine. It would be a great portrait if Moore had not covered her chest, ”Leibovich noted. nine0003
Star Selfie from the Oscars
2014
© 100photos.time.com
One selfie was named one of the best shots of all time by Time. This is a shot taken by TV presenter Ellen DeGeneres during the Oscar ceremony in 2014. The picture "noted" Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lawrence and other celebrities. The frame was posted on Twitter, and more than two million people retweeted it. nine0003
Best Photo of the Year by World Press Photo 2021
Photoobjective
The winners of the World Press Photo, one of the most prestigious photo awards in the world, have been announced.
The top prize went to a Danish photographer for a photo from a nursing home in Brazil. Among the best photos of the year are pictures taken in Russia, Armenia and Belarus
1 A nurse hugs 85-year-old Rosa Luzia Lunardi at a nursing home in Sao Paulo, Brazil on August 5, 2020. For Rosa, this is the first hug in five months. Since March 2020, visiting nursing homes has been banned in Brazil due to the COVID-19 pandemic.. Home staff were required to keep physical contact with residents to a minimum. The "hug curtain" at Viva Bem's house allowed people to hug again.
Photo of the Year by Mads Nissen
2 A snapshot from the photo essay "Khabibi". Nael al-Barghouti's suit hangs in his bedroom in the Palestinian village of Kobar on August 17, 2015. Al-Barghouti was arrested in 1978 for participating in an anti-Israeli operation in which one Israeli was killed. Al-Barghouti was released from prison in 2011 and married, but in 2014 he was re-arrested and sentenced to life in prison.
His wife Iman Nafi keeps all his things in their places. Al-Barghouti spent more than 40 years in prison, the longest of any Palestinian prisoner in Israeli jails. nine0003
Photo essay of the year by Antonio Faccilongo
3 Areg on the porch of a burning house in Nagorno-Karabakh (November 25, 2020). Some residents burned their homes before the territories came under Azerbaijani control following the signing of a peace deal in November.
First place in the "News" category, author - Valery Melnikov
four A man and a woman argue over the demolition of a monument commemorating Abraham Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation in Washington DC, USA (June 25, 2020). nine0003
First place Breaking News category by Evelyn Hoxteen
five A snapshot from the photo report "Explosion in the port of Beirut". Firefighters work at the crash site (August 4, 2020). About ten firefighters died at the scene of the explosion.
First place in the Breaking News, Photo Essay category by Lorenzo Tugnoli
6 The body of a deceased suspected of having COVID-19 is wrapped in plastic at a hospital in Indonesia (April 18, 2020).
Runner-up in the News category by Joshua Irvandi nine0003
7 Women attend a mourning ceremony for General Qasem Soleimani at a mosque in Tehran on January 5, 2020.
Third place in the "News" category, author - Nyusha Tavakolyan
8 Twins Semyon and Stepan as dulganch, mythical creatures living in swamps, for the film "Old Beyberikeen with Five Cows", Sakha, Russia (August 9, 2019). This is their first film role.
First place in the category "Contemporary Issues, Photo Essay", author - Alexey Vasiliev nine0003
nine Fatima and her son prepare a fishing net, Yemen (February 12, 2020). Fatima has nine children and earns her living by fishing.
Despite the fact that her village was destroyed by the war, she returned to start a new life. The conflict between the Houthi (Shia) rebels and a coalition of Sunni Arabs led by Saudi Arabia began in 2014 and led, according to UNICEF, to "the largest humanitarian crisis in the world."
First place in the category "Contemporary Issues", by Pablo Tosco nine0003
10 Olga Seviarynets waits for her husband's release at the walls of the detention center on Akrestina, Minsk (July 22, 2020).
Second place in the Breaking News category, by Nadya Buzhan
eleven Said Ramin with friends at the lake (September 9, 2020). A professional parkour player from Iran, Ramin twisted his spinal cord during a competition seven years ago.
Third place in the category "Photo essay" by Fereshteh Eslahi
12 Ignat, a transgender man, with his girlfriend Maria in St.
Petersburg (April 23, 2020). nine0003
First place in the "Portrait" category, author - Oleg Ponomarev
13 A player of the Flint Jaguars basketball club in the American city of Flint (February 24, 2020). Of the four basketball schools that competed with each other, only one remained in the city.
First Place Sports Photo Story by Chris Donovan
fourteen A sea lion examines a respirator in the water off the coast of California (November 19, 2020).
First Place Environment Category by Ralph Pace nine0003
15 Robert Baldwin Jr in the gun room at his Las Vegas home on April 16, 2019. His girlfriend works at the table. The first weapon - a rifle of 22 caliber - was given to him by his father when Robert was 6 years old.
First place in the category "Portrait, photo essay" by Gabriel Galimberti
sixteen Yazidi Leila Talu poses for porter at her home in Iraq on September 9, 2019.
She carried this face-covering veil and abaya for two and a half years, being a slave to IS militants. nine0003
Second place in the category “Contemporary Issues, Photo Essay”, by Maya Alleruzzo
17 A soldier rests in a trench, Armenia (October 31, 2020).
Third place in the category "Contemporary Issues", author - Vaghinak Ghazaryan
eighteen Pigeon Ollie flies in the living room, Vlaardingen, The Netherlands (April 30, 2020). A pair of feral pigeons befriend a photographer's family isolated during the pandemic. The pigeons were named Ollie and Dolly.
First place in the category "Nature, photo essay" by Jasper Dest nine0003
nineteen Dore Motonatembe exercises outside her tent at a refugee camp in Greece on March 26, 2019.
Third place in the category "Long-term project" by Angelos Tzortsinis
20 A packaged reborn doll waiting to be sent to new "parents" (April 29, 2015).
