Show off your LEGENDARY

[Ororaro]

You ever shot a Legendary photograph?
Or what is your favorite Legendary photograph?

I admit that my photography connaissance is not vast, and it could never be. Besides the handful of big names aka HCB, Winogrand… there is a whole galaxy of great photographers that simply escape us. That is because, perhaps, they hadn’t made a deal with the Devil.

I am thinking that posting such Legendary work in this forum could fall into the fair use category, with no money being at stake, and also having a lot of educational worth.

Here is one from the top of my head, Ruth Orkin, An American Girl in Italy, 1951

Amazing photograph

 

[raydm6]

Great idea for a thread.

I don’t have anything to recommend off the top of my head, but I look forward to learning about new photographers or seeing images I have never experienced.

 

[p.giannakis]

For me, Erich Lessing's work made me love humanistic photography. Every picture he took in Eastern Europe in the 1950s is a masterpiece. Shame magnum shut down access to their archives, I used to love spending time there. I will leave here one of his pictures, so many I could recommend.

 

[Coldkennels]

Personally, I find myself referencing and coming back to this O Winston Link photograph over and over again:



It's such an utter masterpiece of timing, composition, and lighting control. The guy was a genius.

(I'll edit to add that apparently this used 42 #2 flashbulbs and one #0, fired simultaneously, and all wired in series. That must have been such a nightmare to set up!)

 

[Rick Waldroup]

Bar - Gallup, New Mexico by Robert Frank.

I was 12 years old the first time I cracked open a copy of Robert Frank's, The Americans, I knew instantly what I wanted to do in life. This is my favorite photo from that magnificent book.

 

[Dogman]

One of the photographs that always brings a smile is this one by Brazilian photographer Bob Wolfenson done on assignment in Sicily. I may not remember correctly but I think he was doing nudes of the young lady here in various environments. This was a spontaneous moment.





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[Mr_Flibble]

(Source Wikipedia)


Lewis Hine's "Powerhouse Mechanic" always gets me.

 

[p.giannakis]

One of the photographs that always brings a smile is this one by Brazilian photographer Bob Wolfenson done on assignment in Sicily. I may not remember correctly but I think he was doing nudes of the young lady here in various environments. This was a spontaneous moment.

View attachment 4842827



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This is brilliant.

 

[Miles.]

Nicholas Nixon, C.C. Boston, 1983

 

[Miles.]

Wish I could find a better scan, but alas, not possible.

Bobby Abrahamson, Boy Shooting Pool, 2011

 

[Miles.]

Barbara Crane, Private Views, 1980-84

 

[boojum]

A photo that moved me when I first saw it and moves me still.

Added later, this is the famous depression mother, shot in Nipomo, CA The story is tragic. The photo evokes the poverty and despair of the Great Depression. Of all that was shot during that period, privately or on government projects, this is the one which always stands out. The woman has been traced and it turned out OK. She was unhappy about the photo after it was published but came to accept it. Her family turned out just fine, too. So not only is it a great photo, it marks a story with a happy ending, thankfully. Here is a link about the subject: Florence Owens Thompson - Wikipedia

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[Miles.]

Antonio Turoc, Solar Eclipse, 1991

 

[Miles.]

Graciela Iturbide, 1986

 

[wlewisiii]

This is not as famous as some of his other works but it is the kind of thing he did that I have found most useful in helping me find my own direction in photography.



Aspens, Northern New Mexico, 1958 Ansel Adams.

 

[d__b]

This one by Alex Webb is one of my all time favourite photographs. It's such a chaotic & complex scene. I can't even begin to understand how he managed to create such a balanced and beautiful composition from it.

 

[JeffS7444]

Back in my university days, I took a photography class conducted by Wayne Levin. This is one of the photos that he shared with the class:

 

[Freakscene]

William Gedney, Cornett girls, Big Rock, Kentucky, 1964.

My own most reproduced photo is technical and of no interest to a photographer, although I still receive a steady income stream from it.

Marty

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Winston Churchill

1941 © Yousuf Karsh

karsh.org

Word needs leaders, not brezhnev's vintage corruptionists or EU apparatchiks.

 

[Coldkennels]

Word needs leaders, not brezhnev's vintage corruptionists or EU apparatchiks.

Churchill was no leader. In fact, by all accounts, he was a terrible human being. He was a racist (even by the standards of the day), who - at the very least - exacerbated the Bengal Famine (Churchill was quoted as blaming the famine on the fact Indians were "breeding like rabbits"); he wasn't a good statesman, and was basically played by Stalin in their first meeting (this summary really doesn't do the whole thing justice); and he was roundly rejected by the British public after the war was over. If he hadn't been Prime Minister during WWII, I really doubt anyone would remember him fondly.

That's a great portrait, though. Iconic, in fact.

Edit: I hadn't read all the wiki page I referenced for the racist claim. This is atrocious:

In May 1954 Violet Bonham-Carter asked Churchill's opinion about a Labour Party visit to China. Winston Churchill replied:

I hate people with slit eyes and pigtails. I don't like the look of them or the smell of them – but I suppose it does no great harm to have a look at them.[75]

A lot of this sort of thing is (ironically) whitewashed. It's simpler to just take the popular view and only remember the "fight them on the beaches" speech. Churchill wasn't that at all. (In fact, if memory serves correctly, he spent most of WWII sitting in the bath - to the point where generals, politicians, etc. had to come to talk to him while he was in there, which famously led to the inventor of Pykrete walking in and dumping the stuff in the bath with Churchill to prove a point.)