Which is the most famous photograph in history, in your opinion?

[antiquark]

Not really the most famous, but I've always liked it...

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:AldrinFootprint.jpg

 

[alfredian]

Abraham Lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

That last image of Abraham Lincoln, the one where the glass negative cracked. That is the last image made of him, very shortly before the assassination. At one point it was in every history textbook in America.

 

[apodeictic]

The Steerage by Alfred Stieglitz. I think its popularity has wained in recent years, but it certainly was iconic for a time.

That or Mt. Williamson by Ansel Adams. People have copies of it hanging in their bathrooms and kitchens and have no idea who Adams was!

 

[back alley]

 

[Keith]

The pic of the young girl running, covered in napalm, says everything you need to know and despise about war ... and the impact it has on the 'innocents.'

That image will live with me forever.

 

[Bob Michaels]

For straight famousness I go with Che. I think others have done actual research on the spread of that image and it is vast - recognizable across many, many culture and language barriers.

Che image's "famousness" includes T-Shirts and all other derivative representations - not just photo reprints. Thus he wins not because the image represents a stronger meaning than the others in this thread, but because it has been spread far and wide. That portrait seems to be just the right blend of message + cool

I would have to go with Korda's Che image. Yep, that is everywhere. (except in US) Could potentially be the most famous t-shirt image of all time. It seems that in Cuba, Che outsells Fidel by at least 100 to 1.

 

[MickH]

Guess you mean the window shot by Joseph Nicѐphore Niѐpce, the first maintained photo shot around 1826/27 from his window.

Nope, I mean Fox Talbot. 😉

http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_p/1_photographers_talbot_smm_latticed_window.htm

 

[ColinW]

The pic of the young girl running, covered in napalm, says everything you need to know and despise about war ... and the impact it has on the 'innocents.'

That image will live with me forever.

Keith,

I second every word of that.

 

[cliffpov]

November 22, 1963 Dallas Texas get be my vote.

 

[jwnash1]

Eddie Adams' photo of General Nguyen Ngoc Loan killing Vietcong operative Nguyen Van Lem on the streets of Saigon. It had huge impact on conservative Americans perception of Vietnam War. Many who had viewed the war favorably began to rethink their position.

 

[punkromance]

That's a very western perspective. More than half of the world population, a big part of which with communist background cares neither for Bob Marley nor for Che. Don't take this as judgement please, just looking at the world from an Eastern perspective. And Iwo Jima has much meaning in the East as well - of course very different from what it means in the US.

How do you mean a Western perspective? I've travelled a little round the East, off the beaten track as well and I've found the image to be just as prolific there. The Bob Marley thing was just a joke about tourist tat. There was a news report a little while back about the Che photo and how it is the most reproduced image of all time. The question was which is the most famous photograph in history and I would definitely venture that it is one of them. Even the Obama poster was instantly recognisable as an interpretation of it.

 

[sevo]

... has Yuri Aleksey Gagarin (hero of the Soviet Union) been forgotten so soon? or did he simply slip down a convenient memory hole?

As far as known, Gagarin did not take any pictures (but either sides satellites had already taken some from similar altitudes a year or two earlier). In any case, the first generation of cosmonauts/astronauts kept below 500km altitude, about a magnitude too low to take a "picture of the planet" - the first of these (on video) came from he first unmanned moon missions, the first on film and directly taken by hand will have been from Apollo 8.

 

[ZeissFan]

There's always the Kent State photo, which has a great story attached to it about how it came to be distributed.

I don't always think of news photos, although I like a lot of what Alfred Eisenstaedt shot and the fact that he was a very interesting guy. I like Philippe Halsman's portraits, particularly his "jumping" series.

Ansel Adams did great work in showing the grandeur of the American West, although there are a lot of people who don't like Adams. The modern day term would be "Adams haters."

I like W. Eugene Smith's work, although he sounded like an irascible man.

Imogene Cunningham did some very interesting work. I also like Robert Doisneau.

 

[TXForester]

I have no idea which is most famous. Of the few I've read about in this thread so far, they all are important. Some are important to a larger group of people, but one can argue that for some small group, a picture that is significant to them is no less important.

The Marines raising the flag on Mt. Suribachi is important to most of the world, because the effects of WWII are some of the most important reasons much of the world is the way it is today. However, for the people who suffered from Minamata disease and their families, Tomoko in Her Bath is equally important.

 

[swoop]

I think Che's portrait is officially the most recreated image ever.

 

[Keith]

This guy is pretty important to at least a billion people ... just hasn't been marketed as successfully as Che. 🙄

 

[Ron (Netherlands)]

Nope, I mean Fox Talbot. 😉

http://www.edinphoto.org.uk/1_p/1_photographers_talbot_smm_latticed_window.htm

Thanks!, Indeed also one of many important steps in phototechnics, but as with the first preserved photo, it does not count for me as important in terms of impact as the photo of CHE did and still does ....(btw has nothing to do with my political flavor)

 

[al1966]

With the talk of flag photographs, if there are any people from Russia in the Soviet days was the photograph of the Soviet flag being raised over the Reistag (sp?) famous in the Communist times?
I think the most prolific is probably Che, all those posters etc, then again there were some quite iconic images of Lenin that may have been quite prolific. Now if you were to ask the question of most important that would be a whole can of complicated worms.

 

[Clancycoop]

Forgot where the statistics came from, Frank, but I seem to remember that the 2 most reproduced photos are "Afghan Girl" and "Flag Raising over Iwo Jima". Certainly not the Che Guevara portrait (too small of an audience).

Roland.

The Che Portrait has been reproduced countless times on t-shirts, posters and various other parts of youth/counter-culture/revolution all around the world. The "Flag Raising over Iwo Jima" holds a special place in American's hearts, but is not remembered as much by the rest of the world.

Basically I think that you might want to rethink your "too small an audience" comment.

I personally think that the big blue marble earth photo should retain this title. It is still not possible to just see this view whenever you want. Its audience is the whole world.

Bonus points for being reproduced on every iPhone as the default wallpaper picture, thereby being reproduced and seen those millions of times recently 😉

 

[Ducky]

Great Tee shirt image, Joe.😱