Iconic photographs

[mchops]

Not iconic iconic, but this was the first week of lockdown in London. Photo by mchops

 

[MaineCoonMama]

One that the non-Australians may not have seen. In 2009 in Victoria we had a devastating bushfire, over 170 human lives were lost along with countless pets, livestock and wildlife.
This photo of 'Sam' the koala and firefighter David Tree was the iconic image of what became known as Black Saturday.

 

[Sideboard Bob]

I really like this one, Manchester NYE, 2016.

Spoiler: Backstory here

https://www.archive.is/oldest/https...-of-new-years-mayhem-in-manchester-goes-viral

 

[FakeSmile]

To me, this photo of the New York skyline is iconic. It was taken at 8:30am on the morning of 9/11 - just 15 minutes later the first plane went into the north tower. It’s amazing how quickly things can change, and how the photographer (David Monderer) would never have imagined the poignancy of what he was taking. He’d been waiting for the first good weather day to take pictures of the view from a newly opened bridge, and it happened to be that fateful morning.

 

[nicalibres]

I don’t know if they count as iconic but Raymond Depardon’s photos of 1980s Glasgow always make me stop in my tracks. There’s such a sadness about them. These are two of my favourites

 

[MillionDollarBaby]

This image still saddens me now.

 

[childofthe70s]

I adore autumn and nature with this combining both. It is the "Devil’s Bridge (Rakotzbrücke)" - it’s lake-reflection forms perfect circle, in incredible autumn colours (best time to visit is autumn or spring). The stone bridge was built 1860, located in Kromlauer Park, Eastern Germany, close to border with Poland. It was closed in 2018, for restoration, but now back open. It is known as The Devil’s Bridge due to the belief that the magical circle must be the hands of the devil.

ETA a picture in spring for contrast.

 

[Chocolategoggler]

 

[childofthe70s]

I find this beautiful and mindblowing - Geologist Thomas Griffith Taylor and meteorologist Charles Wright look out towards the Terra Nova (South Pole) from inside an ice grotto. January 5, 1911. Taken during Robert Scott's ill-fated expedition to the South Pole.

More photos from the expedition here. https://www.spri.cam.ac.uk/picturelibrary/catalogue/bae1910-13/browse/

 

[klarakluckbag]

"The most important photograph in world" or "Photo 51", the first photograph of the double helix structure of DNA, painstakingly imaged by Rosalind Franklin and Ray Gosling at Kings College London, over 70 years ago.

 

[JoJo76]

This one of a refugee little boy. I’ve always remembered him, poor little soul.

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[kev1974]

How about a photo just before another iconic photo?

 

[TheRockingReverend]

Not really iconic - but you may get a kick out of this one.
In 1949 a woman went to have her camera film developed. As she got to the store she realised she still had one shot left to take, so snapped a picture of this young lad who was outside with his bike. She literally could've taken a photo of anything - the shop, a car, the sky. But something made her choose this ordinary boy.
The photo was taken in Memphis - just 5 years later this young lad would walk into a studio in the same city and record a song that would change history - his name: Elvis Presley.

 

[childofthe70s]

This photo is from 1955, it is called "A few seconds before happiness".

 

[Rosie glow]

Always liked this one
The photograph depicts eleven men eating lunch while sitting on a steel beam 850 feet (260 meters) above the ground on the sixty-ninth floor of the near-completed RCA Building (now known as 30 Rockefeller Plaza) at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, New York City, on September 20, 1932.

 

[childofthe70s]

This is a photograph of an East German soldier helping a little boy cross the newly erected Berlin Wall the day it was built. A boy who’d gotten left behind in the chaos of people fleeing and families caught on different sides of the border. The soldier is young, and his eyes, looking warily over his shoulder, are full of fear. And yet, he persisted.

Despite being given orders by the East German government to let no one pass into East Berlin, the soldier helped the boy sneak through the barbwire. It was reported that the soldier was caught doing this benevolent deed by his superior officer, who removed the soldier from his unit. Hopefully, his punishment was minor and he wasn’t imprisoned or shot. Descriptions of this photo come with the caveat that “no one knows what became of him”.

 

[childofthe70s]

Photos like this blow my mind - Workers Building the Central Line, London, 1898.

 

[childofthe70s]

The child in the pic was later found out to be a boy. He was waiting with his mother outside a medical centre. He surived to adulthood but died in his early 30s.

Thanks for the additional info, I remember reading more at one point.

After realizing that poor women were using the flour sacks to make clothing for their children some flour mills started using flowered fabric for their sacks, 1939.

Teachers getting wasted on Spring Break, 1910.

 

[Kitty-Kat]

Named by Life magazine as the “The Most Beautiful Suicide”: Evelyn McHale leapt to her death from the Empire State Building, 1947...

Spoiler

This still takes my breath away when I see it.

 

[Kittypops]

I love this one of Jackie and Joan Collins for its utter exuberance being right on the money.
What a pair of gals!
Annie Leibovitz, 1987

This thread is amazing