Artistic has chosen the 10 most popular photos of all time.
View from the Window at Gras – Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, 1827
It’s the very first picture ever taken. Niépce, a scientist who lived from 1765 to 1833, was very interested in the growing interest in lithography. He chose to put polished pewter plates covered with bitumen of Judea, a light-sensitive chemical, inside a camera obscura. He took this well-known shot from his home in Saône-et-Loire. It took eight hours to expose the film. After taking the plate out of the camera, he developed the picture with a mix of lavender oil and white gasoline.
Man Jumping the Puddle – Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1932
This famous picture was taken by the French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson behind the Paris Saint-Lazare train station. Cartier-Bresson is credited with creating the phrase “the decisive moment,” which refers to a photographer’s ability to catch a subject at just the right moment, breaking the rules of everyday life to record a transcendent moment. Like a dancer whose outline looks most beautiful in a puddle, the man jumping over the water is like that. This beautiful figure stands out against a mysterious gray background. Also, Roland Barthes’ idea about the punctum and stadium is perfectly shown in this picture. Barthes writes about it in his 1980 book Camera Lucida: Reflections on Photography. In this important book, he talks about punctum, which are the parts of a picture that make sense without using a clear symbolic system. The way each person sees a picture gives it a meaning that is unique to them. The punctum pokes holes in the stadium, revealing political, social, or cultural meanings through semiotic analysis. This makes the stadium look like it’s piercing the viewer. In order to see the punctum effect, the person has to deny everything they know. Barthes says that the punctum is not just the sum of the wishes that are projected onto the photograph. Instead, it comes from things that the photographer didn’t mean to or couldn’t control, like the thing that draws the eye and the overall image that a photo gives off.
Lunch atop a Skyscraper – Unknown, 1932
The names of the people in this popular picture and the name of the photographer are unknown to us. Many people get dizzy when they see this picture of workers taking a lunch break at the top of a skyscraper, but it also makes people think about how dangerous the lives of the people who are building the Rockefeller Center are. During the first half of the 20th century, dozens of workers died after falling off of buildings that were being built.
V-J Day in Times Square – Alfred Eisenstaedt, 1945
Alfred Eisenstaedt went out into the streets of New York’s Time Square after World War II to capture forever the parties that marked the end of the war. This is one of the most famous pictures of the 20th century. Some critics think it shows a sailor and a nurse getting back together after being apart, while others think it shows sexual abuse. The latter meaning fits with the #MeToo movement going on right now.
Gandhi and the Spinning Wheel – Margaret Bourke-White, 1946
The famous 20th-century photographer Margaret Bourke-White honored Gandhi more than once, and this picture, taken two years before he died, is one of her most famous works. The American magazine Life was the first to print this picture. The prices of Bourke-White’s pictures of Gandhi went through the roof after he was killed on January 30, 1948. They became important pieces of art history.
Afghan Girl – Steve McCurry, 1984
Steve McCurry took this famous picture in 1984 while he was in Afghanistan to record the movement of Afghan refugees. Sharbat Gula, who is 17, was photographed in the Nasir Bagh refugee camp. It was on the front page of the National Geographic magazine in June 1985 and became a sign of the Afghan war.
Tank Man – Jeff Widener, 1989
It was this famous picture of a young Chinese guy standing in front of tanks in Tiananmen Square in 1989 that made Jeff Widener the most famous photojournalist of the late 20th century. For this picture, Widener had been hit by a stone the day before. He was told to stay in his hotel while all the other American and European reporters went to the airport to get safety. Widener used the chance to take pictures of the rising from the window of his hotel. When he ran out of film, he asked an Australian guest at the hotel to lend him one. This famous picture, taken by Widener on this roll, is thought by many to be one of the most famous pictures ever taken and won the Pulitzer Prize in 1990.
Death at the Gates of Paradise – Javier Bauluz, 2000
This popular picture by Javier Bauluz won the Pulitzer Prize because it shows how different social classes are around the world. Two tourists are shown in this picture sitting still in front of the dead body of a migrant who was trying to get to Europe.
