Iconic Photographs

The priest and the dying soldier, 1962.

Navy chaplain Luis Padillo gives last rites to a soldier wounded by sniper fire during a revolt in Venezuela. Braving the streets amid sniper fire, to offer last rites to the dying, the priest encountered a wounded soldier, who pulled himself up by clinging to the priest’s cassock, as bullets chewed up the concrete around them. The photographer Hector Rondón Lovera, who had to lie flat to avoid getting shot, later said that he was unsure how he managed to take this picture. The Catholic priest, Luis Padillo, would walk the streets, even through sniper fire, offering last rites to the fighters. Besides priest’s bravery, he also knows the enemy will think a lot before shooting him (just imagine the propaganda) and the enemy soldiers are catholic and would refuse that order.

Even more intense about this picture is the setting, in the background is a carnicería (a butcher’s shop). In Spanish a carnicería means both a “butcher’s shop” and “slaughter, carnage”. The phrase “fue una carnicería” (English equivalent: “it was carnage”) is so common in the Spanish language. The parallel really catches one’s eye and draws the horror of the scene even further.

Bit like the one in northern Ireland, he was stooped down waving a white flag 

"Bloody Sunday"...1972. I was in the army then but too young to go to Northern Ireland as I was only 17.

That priest died 3 weeks ago. Now, I'm no supporter of any church but the man had balls. I saw on a facebook page that the wankers up north were claiming that the reason his left arm is straight is that he was smuggling out the handguns that the protestors had, so the British Army could be blamed for opening up on an unarmed crowd. FFS! Is it any wonder the troubles went on for more than a quarter of a century.

44 years ago that happened and I still don't think anyone's been held accountable. I think they're waiting until all involved parties are dead and then we may hear an apology from the government to the catholics in Derry.

You can fill your head with all sorts of crap looking back, one says this and one says that,  
Try to move on and put it behind you whatever you think,
Surround your self with aggravation and thats what you have
Easy to say i know, thats how i have dealt with the crap that heads my way, 

French women who befriended the Nazis, through coerced, forced, or voluntary relationships, were singled out for shameful retribution following the liberation of France. The woman photographed here, believed to have been a prostitute who serviced German occupiers, is having her head shaved by French civilians to publicly mark her. This picture was taken in Montelimar, France, August 29, 1944.

Evelyn McHale is probably the most famous Empire State Building suicide victim. The young and pretty Evelyn leaped from the 86th-floor observatory in 1947 and landed on the roof of a United Nations limousine parked on the street below. Her calmly elegant demeanor, her legs crossed at the ankles, the way the car’s metal folded like sheets and framed her head and arms—perhaps these were the reasons that McHale’s death was given its title as “The most Beautiful Suicide”. When she died, she was still wearing her pearls and white gloves.

I get pissed off too. but never enough to jump no doubt romance trouble

  X

The Lone Ranger wrote:44 years ago that happened and I still don't think anyone's been held accountable. I think they're waiting until all involved parties are dead and then we may hear an apology from the government to the catholics in Derry.

Cameron issued a full and complete apology on behalf of the UK government. Don't think anyone faced charges but the apology was enough for me ( maybe not others). As Reg said, we have to move on. All conflicts come to an end when both sides talk to each other.Even if its a bitter pill to swallow. Lines of communication with those lunatics in isis will have to be opened. You mightn't like it but there is no alternative imo. You wont be able to bomb them all into obliteration. If you try, more civilians will be killed. The more civilians that are killed, the more volunteers isis will get and it goes on....

The photograph is by Alice Seeley Harris, the man’s name is Nsala. Here is part of her account (from the book “Don’t Call Me Lady: The Journey of Lady Alice Seeley Harris”): He hadn’t made his rubber quota for the day so the Belgian-appointed overseers had cut off his daughter’s hand and foot. Her name was Boali. She was five years old. Then they killed her. But they weren’t finished. Then they killed his wife too. And because that didn’t seem quite cruel enough, quite strong enough to make their case, they cannibalized both Boali and her mother. And they presented Nsala with the tokens, the leftovers from the once living body of his darling child whom he so loved. His life was destroyed. They had partially destroyed it anyway by forcing his servitude but this act finished it for him. All of this filth had occurred because one man, one man who lived thousands of miles across the sea, one man who couldn’t get rich enough, had decreed that this land was his and that these people should serve his own greed. Leopold had not given any thought to the idea that these African children, these men and women, were our fully human brothers, created equally by the same Hand that had created his own lineage of European Royalty.

A dramatic overhead shot by Neil Leifer, generally regarded as one of the greatest sporting images of all time, features the prostrate form of Cleveland Williams while Muhammad Ali strikes a victory pose during a knockdown in their 1966 title fight. As Neil Leifer’s all-time favorite photograph, this amazing shot was captured from a camera hung on a rig 80 feet (24 meters) above the ring at the Houston Astrodome. He correctly estimating the increased likelihood of capturing a shot of the ring from that height. With equally good fortune, he activated a remote-control camera at the right moment. It has been said that it’s the only photo Neil Leifer took himself that is hanging in his house, also he regards this as his favorite photograph from a 40-year professional career.

knockout photo

The vulture and the little girl, 1993. Original title: Struggling Girl.

The vulture is waiting for the girl to die and to eat her. The photograph was taken by South African photojournalist, Kevin Carter, while on assignment to Sudan. He took his own life a couple of month later due to depression.

OMG how sad x

In the 1991 Gulf War, American pilots bombed a retreating Iraqi convoy. Most US media declined to publish this photo.

This photo at first was regarded by many editors as too disturbing to print, but later became one of the most famous images of the first Gulf War. This photo was taken by Ken Jarecke, his quote: “If i don’t photograph this, people like my mom will think war is what they see on TV”.

Bugger,
Iconic photographs is my favourite thread 

Some crackers in it! 

Russian spy laughing through his execution in Finland, 1942.

A Soviet spy laughs at his executioner in a picture taken in Rukajärvi, in East Karelia, in November 1942. It has been thought within the Finnish Defence Forces that the decision to withhold pictures of the fate of Russian POWs and spies may also have been prompted by concerns that pro-Soviet elements in Finnish society could have used the images for propaganda purposes. This picture was declassified by the Ministry of Defense of Finland in the 2006, with the description: Unknown Soviet intelligence officer before being shot, Finland, 1942.
It’s a pretty amazing picture. To capture the last few moments of life. He knows he will die in a few seconds, in a forest in the snow. And there he will bleed out and be forgotten. His life, his experience, has come to an end. What else could he do but smile? That smile was his final defiance. Death smiles at us all, all a man can do is smile back.

Nasty

Georges Blind, a member of the French resistance, smiling at a German firing squad, October 1944.

This was a mock execution attempting to get the resistance fighter, Georges Blind, to talk. It didn’t work. Georges did not divulge any information. It’s interesting how they’ve placed him at the corner of the building rather than against the stereotypical flat wall. It must make ricochet injuries to the firing squad members much less likely. Of course this was a mock execution, but most likely they used the same site for real executions. Georges Blind was eventually forwarded to a concentration camp, where he was selected for termination on arrival, dying some time in late November 1944.

Top man George

A German soldier returns home to Frankfurt am Main after the end of the War, 1946.

The photo of a German prisoner of war returning to his home town of Frankfurt to discover his house bombed and his family no longer there, shows the kind of depressing moments of dejected subjects we associate with images of war.

No stranger to scenes of despair, the photographer Tony Vaccaro caught the defeated man in the throws of grief, as the bombed shells of former houses loom eerily behind him. It’s an unimaginable pain, to be pulled into a war that would scar a country for generations to come and then to return home, seeking relief after all the hell you went through, to find no one there. He, having thought of them time and time again just driving himself to get home safe. Evoked here is a quiet grief, a silent inner turmoil raging within the man shattered by the overwhelming news of his loved ones.