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The most famous photographs in history. The most famous photographs of the 21st century The most outstanding photographer in the world of the 21st century

"Lunch on a Skyscraper"
1932

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Eleven men are having lunch, chatting and smoking. Everything would be fine, but they do this while sitting on a steel beam at the 69th floor above Manhattan. It was this scene that was captured by an unknown photographer in the photo “Lunch on a Skyscraper.” The shot was taken on September 29, 1932 as a staged shot, but with real workers, and a couple of days later it was published in the Sunday supplement to New York Herald Tribune. The photo was taken during the Great Depression, when desperate people were willing to do any work and climbed to gigantic heights without any safety nets.

Dorothea Lange "Migrant Mother"
1936

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The famous photo was taken in March 1936, at the height of the Great Depression. Dorothea Lange, who worked as a reporter, captured Florence Thompson. “I saw a mother who had lost all hope, and I was drawn to her like a magnet,” Lange recalled in 1960. “I took five pictures, getting closer to her each time, but didn’t even ask her name. She said that she was 32 years old and that she and her children lived on frozen vegetables from the fields and birds that they sometimes managed to shoot. That day she just sold the tires from her car to buy some food.” On March 10, 1936, the San Francisco News published a photo of Florence in the article "Desolate, Hungry, Hopeless - Harvesters Live in Squalor." The photograph of a strong, unknown woman instantly spread throughout the country, and soon throughout the world. And the original photograph was auctioned in 2005 for $296 thousand.

Evgeniy Khaldey “Victory Banner over the Reichstag”
1945

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“This is what I’ve been waiting for 1,400 days,” admitted Soviet photographer Evgeniy Khaldei. The war correspondent took his world-famous photograph on May 2, 1945. By that time, street fighting had already ended in Berlin, and the city was completely occupied by Soviet troops. Khaldei asked the first soldiers he encountered to help him take photographs. Soon he filmed two tapes with them. Yevgeny Khaldei brought the banner captured in the photo with him. It is curious that it was made from a red tablecloth, which the photographer “borrowed” during one of his visits to Moscow from the Photo Chronicle cafeteria.

Alfred Eisenstadt "Victory over Japan Day in Times Square"
1945

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In the summer of 1945, photographer Alfred Eisenstadt took a chance photo that was destined to become iconic. He captured a sailor who learned about the end of the war with Japan. “He ran all over the street, grabbing every woman he saw - it didn’t matter if they were elderly, portly or slender. I ran in front of him with my Leica, turning around and trying to take a photo, but I didn't like any of them. And then, suddenly - like a flash - I saw that he grabbed something white. I turned and pressed the button at the very moment when he kissed the nurse,” the photographer later said. A week later, Eisenstadt's photograph was published in Life magazine, where it took up an entire page. The shot became iconic, and for many Americans it became a symbol of peace.

Philippe Halsman "Dali anatomicus"
1948

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Philippe Halsman is called the founder of surrealism in photography. His famous “Jump” series has become a classic of photography. It included more than 200 portraits of famous people jumping in the frame. One of the heroes of the series was Salvador Dali. The Dali Anatomicus shot took Halsman six hours to complete. The easel and the painting were suspended by a fishing line from the ceiling, the photographer's wife held a chair in the foreground, and two assistants were throwing cats and throwing out a bucket of water. “When a person jumps, his attention is mainly directed to the act of jumping, the mask falls off and his true face appears,” Philippe Halsman explained the choice of the theme of the photographs.

Richard Avedon "Dovima and the Elephants"
1955

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Richard Avedon directed a commercial in 1955 new collection Christian Dior. He chose his favorite Dovima as a model and decided to capture her against the backdrop of elephants. Avedon wanted to convey the symmetry of fragility and power, light and dark. The photograph "Dovima and the Elephants" was taken at the Cirque d'Hiver. And the model’s dresses were created by a young and then little-known designer Yves Saint Laurent, who worked as an assistant to Christian Dior.

Harry Benson "Pillow Fight"
1964

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On the evening of January 16, 1964, photographer Harry Benson took one of the most famous photographs of the Fab Four. He captured members of The Beatles having a pillow fight in a room at the Hotel George V in Paris. In general, Benson did not plan to photograph the Beatles. He wanted to go film a “serious story” in Africa. “I saw myself as a serious journalist and didn’t want to make a rock and roll story,” Benson said. But chance nevertheless brought him to Paris, where the Fab Four were at that moment. The pillow fight caught on film began spontaneously. This was the musicians' reaction to the announcement that their single "I Want to Hold Your Hand" had reached number one on the American pop charts.

Neil Armstrong "Man on the Moon"
1969

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The 1969 photo was taken by Neil Armstrong himself. The first man to walk on the moon captured his Apollo 11 crewmate, astronaut Buzz Aldrin. “Most of the time Neil had the camera, and I was the subject of these wonderful shots, because every shot he took was simply magnificent,” Aldrin later recalled. Photography was not one of the astronauts’ priorities, yet the photographs became historical and remained in the memory of mankind.

Annie Leibovitz "Demi Moore"
1991

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In 1991, Annie Leibovitz photographed Demi Moore nude for the cover of Vanity Fair when the actress was seven months pregnant. For the early nineties, the photo was a real shock and created a sensation. The magazine issue went on sale in special packaging envelopes. They hid Moore's naked body, leaving only her eyes open. The cover of Vanity Fair with nude Moore became for glossy magazine the most successful of all time. And the audience of the issue amounted to more than 100 million readers. Annie Leibovitz herself, however, was quite strict with her photographic work. “I don't think it's a good photograph in itself. This is a magazine cover. It would have been a great portrait if Moore hadn’t covered her breasts,” Leibovich noted.

Star selfie from the Oscars
2014

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One selfie was named one of the best photographs of all time by Time. We are talking about a shot taken by TV presenter Ellen DeGeneres during the Oscars in 2014. The photo featured Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Jennifer Lawrence and other celebrities. The frame was posted on Twitter and was retweeted by more than two million people.

World Press Photo Winners 1955 - 2006. The best photographs of the 2nd half of the 20th century.

Lucian Perkins/The Washington Post, USA.
May 1995. Chechnya.
A young boy looks out of a bus loaded with refugees who fled the epicenter of the war between Chechen separatists and Russians, near Shali, Chechnya. The bus returns to Grozny.

Mogens von Haven, Denmark.
August 28, 1955.
Volk Molle motorsport championship in Denmark.

Helmut Pirath, Germany.
1956, eastern Germany.
The daughter meets a German prisoner of World War II, who was released by the USSR.

Douglas Martin/AP, USA.
September 4, 1956.
Dorothy Counts, one of the first black students, goes to college.

Stanislav Tereba/Vecemik Praha, Czechoslovakia.
September 1958.
National Football Championship, game between Prague and Bratislava.

Yasushi Nagao/Mainichi Shimbun, Japan.
October 12, 1960, Tokyo.
A right-wing student kills the chairman of the Socialist Party, Inejiro Asanuma.

Hector Rondon Lovera/Diario La Republica, Venezuela.
June 4, 1962, Puerto Cabello naval base.
A soldier mortally wounded by a sniper holds on to priest Luis Padillo.

Malcolm W. Browne/AP, USA.
June 11, 1963, Saigon, southern Vietnam.
Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc set himself on fire to protest religious persecution by the Vietnamese government.

Donald McCullin/for The Observer, Quick, Life, UK.
April 1964. Ghaziveram, Cyprus.
A Turkish woman mourns her husband, who became a victim of the Greek-Turkish civil war.

September 1965, Binh Dinh, southern Vietnam.
A mother and children cross a river to escape American aerial bombardment.

Kyoichi Sawada/United Press International, Japan.
February 24, 1966, Tan Binh, southern Vietnam.
American soldiers drag the body of a Viet Cong (South Vietnamese rebel) soldier on a leash.

Co Rentmeester/Life, Netherlands.
May 1967, southern Vietnam.
The commander of the M48 tank, 7th Cavalry Regiment of the US Army at his work.

Eddie Adams/AP, USA.
February 1, 1968, Saigon, southern Vietnam.
South Vietnamese National Police Chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan executes a Viet Cong member.

Hanns-Jorg Anders/Stern, Germany.
May 1969, Londonderry, Northern Ireland.
A young Catholic during clashes with British troops.

Wolfgang Peter Geller, Germany.
December 29, 1971, Saarbrucken, eastern Germany.
Shootout between police and bank robbers.

(Nick) Ut Hong Huynh/AP, Vietnam.
June 8, 1972, Trangbang, southern Vietnam.
Phan Thi Kim Phuc (center) flees napalm dropped by mistake by South Vietnamese troops.

Anonymous/New York Times.
September 11, 1973, Santiago, Chile.
Democratically elected President Salvador Alende seconds before his death during a military coup at the presidential palace.

Ovie Carter/Chicago Tribune, USA
July 1974, Nigeria.
Victims of drought.

Stanley Forman/Boston Herald, USA.
July 22, 1975, Boston.
A girl and a woman fall trying to escape a fire.

Francoise Demulder/Gamma, France.
January 1976, Beirut, Lebanon.
Palestinian refugees.

Lesley Hammond/The Argus, South Africa.
August 1977. Illegal settlement of Modderdam, South Africa.
Police spray tear gas during unrest in the illegal settlement of Modderdam, South Africa. People are protesting against the destruction of their homes.

Sadayuki Mikami/AP, Japan.
March 26, 1978, Tokyo, Japan.
Protest against the construction of Narita Airport.

David Burnett/Contact Press Images, USA.
November 1979, Sa Keo refugee camp.
A Cambodian woman cradles her baby while waiting for free food to be distributed.

Mike Wells, UK.
April 1980. Karamoja region, Uganda.
A terribly hungry boy and a missionary.

Manuel Perez Barriopedro/EFE, Spain.
February 23, 1981, Madrid, Spain.
Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero Molina, members of the Civil Guard and military police hold the Spanish parliament hostage.

Robin Moyer/Black Star for Time magazine, USA.
September 18, 1982. Beirut, Lebanon.
The aftermath of the massacre of Palestinians by Christian Phalangists in Sabra and the Shatila refugee camp in Lebanon.

Mustafa Bozdemir/Hurriyet Gazetesi, Türkiye.
October 30, 1983. Koyunoren, eastern Türkiye.
Kezban Ozer found her five children dead after a devastating earthquake.

Pablo Bartholomew/Gamma, India.
December 1984. Bhopal, India.
A child who died as a result of a poisonous gas leak during an accident at the Union Carbide chemical plant.

Frank Fournier/Contact Press Images, France.
November 16, 1985. Armero, Colombia.
Twelve-year-old Omayra Sanchez is trapped in the rubble caused by the eruption of the Nevado del Ruz volcano. After sixty hours of being trapped, she lost consciousness and died.

Alon Reininger/Contact Press Images, USA/Israel.
September 1986. San Francisco, USA.
Ken Meeks' skin was left with ugly blemishes due to Kaposi's Sarcoma, caused by AIDS.

Anthony Suau/Black Star, USA.
December 18, 1987. Kuro, South Korea.
Mother begs police for protection public order to return her son to her after he was arrested at a demonstration accusing the government of fraud in the presidential election.

December 1988. Leninakan, USSR (Armenia).
Boris Abgarzyan grieves for his 17-year-old son, a victim of a terrible earthquake.

Charlie Cole/Newsweek, USA.
June 4, 1989. Beijing, China.
A demonstrator confronts Chinese People's Liberation Army tanks at a demonstration promoting democratic reform.

Georges Merillon/Gamma, France.
January 28, 1990. Nogovac, Kosovo, Yugoslavia.
Relatives attend the funeral of 27-year-old Elshani Nashim, who was killed at a rally protesting Yugoslavia's decision to revoke Kosovo's autonomy.

David Turnley/Black Star/Detroit Free Press, USA.
February 1991. Iraq.
US Sergeant Ken Kozakiewicz mourns the death of his comrade Andy Alaniz, a victim of friendly fire on the final day of the Gulf War.
Then they did not yet know what would happen in ten years...

James Nachtwey/Magnum Photos/USA for Liberation, USA/France.
November 1992. Bardera, Somalia.
A mother lifts the body of her child, who has died of hunger, to take him to the grave.

Larry Towell/Magnum Photos, Canada.
March 1993. Palestinian territories, Gaza Strip.
Palestinian boys raised their toy guns in defiance of the Israelis.

James Nachtwey/Magnum Photos for Time magazine, USA.
June 1994. Rwanda.
A man from the Hutu ethnic group was maimed by police who suspected him of sympathizing with rebels from the Tutsi ethnic group. Rwanda.

Francesco Zizola/Agenzia Contrasto, Italy.
1996 Kuito, Angola.
Victims of a landmine in Quito. During the civil war in this city, many people were killed and injured.

Hocine/AFP, Algeria.
September 23, 1997. Capital of Algeria.
A woman cries outside the Zmirli hospital, where many of the dead and wounded were taken after the Bentalha massacre.

Dayna Smith/The Washington Post, USA.
November 6, 1998. Izbica, Kosovo, Yugoslavia.
At the funeral, relatives and friends comfort the widow of a Kosovo Liberation Army soldier who died the previous day while on patrol.

Claus Bjorn Larsen/Berlingske Tidende, Denmark.
April 1999. Kukes, Albania.
An injured man walks along Kukes Street in Albania, one of the largest gathering points for ethnic Albanian refugees fleeing violence in Kosovo.

Lara Jo Regan/for Life, USA.
2000 Texas, USA.
Uncounted Americans: A Mexican immigrant mother makes picatas to feed herself and her children.

Erik Refner/for Berlingske Tidende, Denmark.
June 2001. Jalozai refugee camp, Pakistan.
The body of an Afghan refugee boy is being prepared for burial.

Eric Grigorian/Polaris Images, Armenia/USA.
June 23, 2002. Qazvin Province, Iran.
Surrounded by soldiers and villagers digging graves for earthquake victims, a boy holds his dead father's trousers, and squats near the place where his father will be buried.

Jean-Marc Bouju/AP, France.
March 31, 2003. An Najaf, Iraq.
A man tries to alleviate the difficult conditions for his son in a prison for prisoners of war.

Arko Datta/Reuters, India.
December 28, 2004.
A woman mourns a relative killed by the tsunami, Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu, India.

Finbarr O"Reilly/Reuters, Canada.
August 1, 2005. Tahoua, Nigeria.
A mother and her child at a free feeding center.

Spencer Platt/Getty Images *, USA.
August 15, 2006. Beirut, Lebanon.
Wealthy young people travel to see areas devastated by Israeli bombing in southern Beirut.

Everyone has seen these pictures: a selection of the most famous and most impressive photographs that have repeatedly flown around the world.
“The most famous photograph that no one has seen,” is what Associated Press photographer Richard Drew calls his photograph of one of the victims of the World War II. shopping center, who jumped out of a window to her death on September 11

Malcolm Brown, a 30-year-old photographer from New York, followed an anonymous tip to photograph the self-immolation of Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc, which became a sign of protest against repression of Buddhists.

The 21-week fetus, which was due to be born last December, was in the womb before spinal surgery began. At this age, the child can still be legally aborted.

The death of the Al-Dura boy, filmed by a television station reporter as he is shot by Israeli soldiers while in the arms of his father.

Photographer Kevin Carter won a Pulitzer Prize for his photograph "Famine in Sudan," taken in early spring 1993. On this day, Carter specially flew to Sudan to film scenes of famine in a small village.

Jewish settler confronts Israeli police as they enforce the decision Supreme Court on the dismantling of 9 houses at the outpost of the Amona settlement, West Bank, February 1, 2006.

A 12-year-old Afghan girl is a famous photograph taken by Steve McCurry in a refugee camp on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

July 22, 1975, Boston. A girl and a woman fall trying to escape a fire. Photo by Stanley Forman/Boston Herald, USA.

"Unknown Rebel" in Tiananmen Square. This famous photo, taken by Associated Press photographer Jeff Widene, shows a protester who single-handedly held off a tank column for half an hour.

The girl Teresa, who grew up in a concentration camp, draws a "house" on the board. 1948, Poland. Author - David Seymour.

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 were a series of coordinated suicide terrorist attacks that occurred in the United States. According to the official version, responsibility for these attacks lies with the Islamist terrorist organization Al-Qaeda.

Frozen Niagara Falls. Photo from 1911.

April 1980, UK. Karamoja region, Uganda. Hungry boy and missionary. Photo by Mike Wells.

White and Colored, photograph by Elliott Erwitt, 1950.

Young Lebanese men drive through a devastated area of Beirut on August 15, 2006. Photo by Spencer Platt.

The photograph of an officer shooting a handcuffed prisoner in the head not only won a Pulitzer Prize in 1969, but also changed the way Americans think about what happened in Vietnam.

Lynching, 1930. This photo was taken as a mob of 10,000 whites hanged two black men for raping and murdering a white woman. young man. Author: Lawrence Beitler.

At the end of April 2004, the CBS program 60 Minutes II aired a story about the torture and abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison by a group of American soldiers. This became the biggest scandal surrounding the American presence in Iraq.

Burial of an unknown child. On December 3, 1984, the Indian city of Bhopal suffered from the largest man-made disaster in human history: a giant toxic cloud released into the atmosphere by an American pesticide plant killed more than 18 thousand people.

Photographer and scientist Lennart Nilsson gained international fame in 1965 when LIFE magazine published 16 pages of photographs of a human embryo.

Photo of the Loch Ness monster, 1934. Author: Ian Wetherell.

Riveters. The photo was taken on September 29, 1932, on the 69th floor of Rockefeller Center during the final months of construction.

Surgeon Jay Vacanti from Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston in 1997 managed to grow a human ear on the back of a mouse using cartilage cells.

Freezing rain can form a thick layer of ice on any object, even destroying giant power poles. The photo shows the consequences of freezing rain in Switzerland.

A man tries to alleviate the difficult conditions for his son in a prison for prisoners of war. March 31, 2003. An Najaf, Iraq.

Dolly is a female sheep, the first mammal successfully cloned from the cell of another adult creature. The experiment was carried out in Great Britain, where she was born on July 5, 1996.

The Patterson-Gimlin film's 1967 documentary film of a female Bigfoot, the American Bigfoot, is still the only clear photographic evidence of the existence of living relict hominids on earth.

Republican soldier Federico Borel García is depicted facing death. The photo caused a huge shock in society. The author of the photo is Robert Capa.

The photograph, taken by reporter Alberto Korda at a rally in 1960, claims to be the most circulated photo in the history of photography.

The photograph showing the hoisting of the Victory Banner over the Reichstag spread throughout the world. 1945 Author - Evgeniy Khaldey.

Death of a Nazi functionary and his family. The father of the family killed his wife and children, then shot himself. 1945, Vienna.

For millions of Americans, this photograph, which photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt called “Unconditional Surrender,” symbolized the end of World War II.

The assassination of the thirty-fifth President of the United States, John Kennedy, took place on Friday, November 22, 1963 in Dallas, Texas, at 12:30 local time.

On December 30, 2006, ex-president Saddam Hussein was executed in Iraq. The Supreme Court has sentenced the former Iraqi leader to death by hanging. The sentence was carried out at 6 a.m. in a suburb of Baghdad.

American soldiers drag the body of a Viet Cong (South Vietnamese rebel) soldier on a leash. February 24, 1966, Tan Binh, South Vietnam.

A young boy looks out of a bus loaded with refugees who fled the epicenter of the war between Chechen separatists and Russians, near Shali, Chechnya. The bus returns to Grozny. May 1995. Chechnya

Terry the cat and Thomson the dog are dividing who will be the first to start eating Jim the hamster. The owner of the animals and the author of this wonderful photograph, American Mark Andrew, claims that no one was hurt during the photo shoot.

French photographer Henry Cartier Bresson, who is considered one of the founders of the genre of photo reporting and photojournalism, took this shot in Beijing in the winter of 1948. The photograph shows children queuing for rice.

Photographer Bert Stern became the last person to photograph Marilyn Monroe. A few weeks after the photo shoot, the actress passed away.

There were times when alcohol was sold to children - all the parent had to do was write a note. In this shot, the boy proudly walks home, carrying two bottles of wine to his father.

The English Rugby Championship final in 1975 gave rise to the so-called streaking - when naked people run onto the field in the middle of a sporting event. A fun hobby, and nothing more.

In 1950, at the height of the Korean War, General MacArthur, when the Chinese launched a counteroffensive, realized that he had overestimated the capabilities of his troops. It was then that he uttered his most famous phrase: “We retreat! For we are moving in the wrong direction!”

This photograph of Winston Churchill was taken on January 27, 1941 in a photographic studio in Downing Street. Churchill wanted to show the world the resilience and determination of the British during World War II.

This photo has been remade into postcard and for a long time was the most popular postcard in America. The photograph shows three girls with dolls arguing furiously about something in an alley in Sevilla (Spain).

Two boys collect the fragments of a mirror, which they themselves had previously broken. And life is still in full swing around.

The profession of photographer today is one of the most widespread. Perhaps it would be easier here to become the best of the best at the beginning or middle of the 20th century. Today, when every second or third photographer, well, at least considers himself one, the criteria for good photography, at first glance, are blurred. But this is only at first, superficial glance. Quality standards and focus on talent have not gone away. You always need to keep before your eyes a kind of standard, an example that you can follow. We have prepared for you a list of the 20 best photographers in the world, which will become an excellent tuning fork...

Alexander Rodchenko

Revolutionary photographer. Rodchenko means as much to photography as Eisenstein does to cinema. He worked at the intersection of avant-garde, propaganda, design and advertising.

All these hypostases formed an inextricable unity in his work.

By rethinking all the genres that existed before him, he made a kind of great turning point in the art of photography and set the course for everything new and progressive. The famous photographs of Lily Brik and Mayakovsky belong to his lens.

He is also the author of the famous phrase “Work for life, not for palaces, temples, cemeteries and museums.”

Henri-Cartier Bresson

A classic of street photography. Native of Chanteloupe, Seine-et-Marne department in France. He started out as an artist painting in the “surrealism” genre, but his achievements did not end there. In the early 30s, when the famous Leica fell into his hands, he fell in love with photography forever.

Already in 1933, an exhibition of his works was held at Julien Levy, a gallery in New York. He worked with director Jean Renoir. Bresson's street reports are especially appreciated.

Contemporaries especially noted his talent for remaining invisible to the person being photographed.

Therefore, the unstaged, authentic nature of his photographs is striking. Like a true genius, he left a galaxy of talented followers.

Anton Corbijn

Perhaps, for fans of Western rock music, this name is not an empty phrase. In general, one of the most famous photographers in the world.

The most original and extraordinary photographs of groups such as Depeche Mode, U2, Nirvana, Joy Division and others were taken by Anton. He is also the designer of U2 albums. Plus he shot videos for a number of teams and performers, including: Coldplay, Tom Waits, Nick Cave, country legend Johnny Cash, thrash metal mastodons Metallica, and singers Roxette.

Critics note the originality of Corbijn's style, which, however, has countless imitators.

Mick Rock

There are paparazzi photographers who intrude into the personal lives of stars without permission and are mercilessly thrown out of there. And then there are people like Mick Rock.

What does it mean? Well, how can I tell you? Remember David Bowie? Here is Mick - the only person with a lens at the ready who was able to enter the personal space of the discoverer of new musical horizons, the trickster and the Martian from rock music. Mick Rock's photographs are a kind of cardiogram of Bowie's creative period from 1972 to 1973, when Ziggy Stardust had not yet returned back to his planet.

During that period and earlier, David and his associates worked hard on the image of a real star, which as a result became a reality. In terms of budget, Mick's work is inexpensive, but impressive. “Everything was created on a very small scale with smoke and mirrors,” Mick recalled.

Georgy Pinkhasov

An original photographer of his generation, a member of the Magnum agency, a graduate of VGIKA. It was Georgy who was invited by Andrei Tarkovsky to the set of the film “Stalker” as a reporter.

During the years of Perestroika, when the nude genre was a priority among advanced photographers, Georgy was one of the first to draw attention to the importance of a reportage photograph. They say that he did this at the suggestion of Tarkovsky and Tonino Guerra.

As a result, today his photographs of that everyday life are not only masterpieces containing authenticity, but also the most important evidence of that era. One of the famous cycles of Georgy Pinkhasov is “Tbilisi Baths”. Georgy notes the important role of chance in art.

Annie Leibovitz

An essential name for our list of the best photographers. Annie made immersion into the life of a model her main creative principle.

One of the most famous portraits of John Lennon was made by her, and quite spontaneously.

“At that time I didn’t yet know how to control models, ask them to do what I needed. I was just metering the exposure and asked John to look into the lens for a second. And clicked...”

The result immediately made it onto the cover of Rolling Stone. The last photo shoot in Lennon's life was also carried out by her. The same photo of a naked John curled up around Yoko Ono, dressed all in black. Who hasn't been captured by Annie Leibovitz's camera: pregnant Demi Moore, Whoopi Goldberg bathing in milk, Jack Nicholson playing golf in a dressing gown, Michelle Obama, Natalia Vodianova, Meryl Streep. It’s impossible to list them all.

Sarah Moon

Real name is Mariel Hadang. Born in Paris 1941, during the Vichy regime her family moved to England. Mariel started out as a model, posing for various publications, then she tried herself on the other side of the lens and got a taste for it.

One can note her sensitive work with models, since Sarah knew firsthand about their profession. Her works are distinguished by their particular sensuality; Sarah is noted for her talent for especially sensitively conveying the femininity of her models.

In the 70s, Sarah left the modeling field and turned to black and white art photography. In 1979 he made experimental films. Subsequently, she worked as a cameraman on the set of the film “Lulu,” which would receive an award at the Venice Film Festival in 1987.

Sally Man

Another female photographer. Native of Lexington, Virginia. She almost never left her native place. Since the 70s, it has essentially worked only in the South of the United States.

He shoots only in the summer; all other seasons he develops photographs. Favorite genres: portrait, landscape, still life, architectural photography. Favorite color scheme: black and white. Sally became famous for her photographs depicting members of her family - her husband and children.

The main thing that distinguishes her work is the simplicity of the subjects and interest in everyday life. Sally and her husband belong to the hippie generation, which has become their signature style of life: living away from the city, gardening, independence from social conventions.

Sebastian Salgado

Magic realist from photography. He draws all his wonderful images from reality. They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

So, Sebastian is able to discern it in anomalies, misfortunes and environmental disasters.

Wim Wenders, outstanding director of “Deutsche new wave”, spent a quarter of a century exploring Salgado’s work, resulting in the film “The Salt of the Earth,” which received a special prize at the Cannes Film Festival.

Weegee (Arthur Fellig)

Considered a classic of the crime genre in photography. During the period of his active work, not a single urban incident - from a fight to a murder - went unnoticed by Weegee.

He was ahead of his competitors, and sometimes got to the crime scene even earlier than the police. In addition to crime topics, he specialized in reporting on the everyday life of the slums of the metropolis.

His photographs formed the basis of Jules Dassin's noir Naked City, and Weegee is also mentioned in Zack Snyder's Watchmen. And the famous director Stanley Kubrick studied the art of photography from him in his youth. Check out the genius's early films, they're definitely influenced by Weegee's aesthetic.

Irving Penn

Master in the portrait genre. One can note a number of his favorite techniques: from shooting models in the corner of a room to using a plain white or gray background.

Irwin also liked to photograph representatives of various working professions in their uniforms and with tools at the ready. Brother of New Hollywood director Arthur Penn, famous for his Bonnie and Clyde.

Diane Arbus

Her name at birth was Diana Nemerova. Her family emigrated from Soviet Russia in 1923 and settled in a New York neighborhood.

Diana was distinguished by a desire to violate generally accepted norms and to commit extravagant acts. At the age of 13, against the wishes of her parents, she married Alan Arbus, an aspiring actor, and took his last name. After some time, Alan left the stage and took up photography, involving his wife in the business. They opened a photography studio and shared responsibilities. Creative differences led to a break in the 60s. Having defended her creative principles, Diana became a cult photographer.

As an artist, she was distinguished by her interest in freaks, dwarfs, transvestites, and the weak-minded. And also to nudity. You can learn more about Diana’s personality by watching the film “Fur,” where she was played perfectly by Nicole Kidman.

Evgeny Khaldey

A very important photographer for our list. Thanks to him, key events of the first half of the 20th century were captured. While still a teenager, he chose the path of a photojournalist.

Already at the age of 22, he was an employee of TASS Photo Chronicles. He made reports about Stakhanov, photographed the construction of the Dnieper Hydroelectric Power Station. Worked as a war correspondent throughout the Great Patriotic War. Walking from Murmansk to Berlin with his trusty Leica camera, he took a series of photographs, thanks to which today we can at least imagine everyday life in war.

The Potsdam Conference, the hoisting of the red banner over the Reichstag, the act of surrender of Nazi Germany and others fell into the eye of his lens. major events. In 1995, two years before his death, Evgeniy Khaldei received the title of Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters.

Mark Riboud

Master of the reporting genre. His first famous photograph, published in Life, is “Painter on the Eiffel Tower.” Recognized as a photographic genius, Riboud had a modest personality.

He tried to remain invisible both to those photographed and to his admirers.

The most famous photograph is of a hippie girl holding out a flower to soldiers standing with machine guns at the ready. He also has a series of photographs from the everyday life of the USSR in the 60s and a lot of other interesting things.

Richard Kern

And a little more rock and roll, especially since this is the main theme of this photographer, along with violence and sex. Considered one of the most important photographers for the New York underground.

Captured many famous, one might say extremely famous, musicians. Among them is the absolute monster and transgressor punk musician GG Allin. Kern also collaborates with men's magazines, where he supplies his erotic works.

But his approach is far from the generally glossy one. In his spare time from photography, he shoots music videos. Among the groups with which Kern collaborated are Sonic Youth and Marilyn Manson.

Thomas Morkes

Do you want peace, silence, or maybe even solitude? Then this is one of the most suitable candidates. Thomas Morkes from the Czech Republic is a landscape photographer who chose the charm of autumn nature as his theme. These photographs have it all: romance, sadness, the triumph of fading.

One of the effects of Thomas’s photographs is the desire to get away from the city noise into some such jungle and reflect on the Eternal.

Yuri Artyukhin

Counts the best photographer wild animals. He is a researcher at the laboratory of ornithology at the Pacific Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Yuri passionately loves birds.

It was for his photographs of birds that he received (more than once) a variety of awards not only in Russia, but throughout the world.

Helmut Newton

What about the nude genre? An excellent, very subtle and delicate genre that has its own masters.

Helmut became famous throughout the world for his works. His unspoken motto was the expression “Sex sells,” which means “sex helps sell.”

Winner of the most prestigious competitions, including the French “Order of Arts and Letters”.

Ron Galella

Having covered various areas of photography, it is impossible not to say about the pioneer of such a dubious and at the same time important for understanding modern world genre, like paparazzi.

You probably know that this phrase comes from Federico Fellini’s film “La Dolce Vita.” Ron Garella is one of those photographers who will not ask permission to shoot, but on the contrary, will catch stars when they are not generally ready for this.

Julia Roberts, Woody Allen, Al Pacino, Sophia Loren - that's far from full list those whom Ron had willfully caught. One day, Marlon Brando got so angry with Ron that he knocked out several of his teeth on the spot.

Guy Bourdin

One of the most important photographers needed for a correct understanding of the world of fashion, its origins and aesthetics. He combines eroticism and surrealism in his works. One of the most copied and imitated photographers in the world. Erotic, surreal. Now - a quarter of a century after his death - it is increasingly relevant and modern.

He published his first photographs in the mid-50s. The photo was, to put it mildly, provocative. A girl in an elegant hat against the backdrop of calf heads looking out of a shop window butcher shop. Over the next 32 years, Bourdain regularly contributed entertaining photographs to Vogue magazine. What set him apart from many of his colleagues was that Bourdain was given complete creative freedom.

One press of the camera shutter - and an unknown paparazzi photographer becomes rich or famous (or better yet, both), and his name is mentioned next to the names greatest people. You can have different attitudes towards the difficult craft of a photojournalist, but largely thanks to it we get the opportunity to see the world at least a little further than the tip of our own nose. I suggest you familiarize yourself with some photographs that have already gone down in history. Unfortunately, most of them show suffering and death (((.

The photograph was taken on September 29, 1932, on the 69th floor during the final months of construction of Rockefeller Center.

The photograph shows a victim of a terrible tragedy - the eruption of the Colombian volcano Nevado del Ruiz on November 13, 1985 (the fourth largest number of victims among known volcanic eruptions). A muddy slurry of dirt and earth swallowed up every living thing in its path. More than 23 thousand people died then.

A girl, Omaira Sanchez, was captured on camera a few hours before her death. She was unable to get out of the mud mess because her legs were pinned by a huge concrete slab. The rescuers did everything in their power. The girl behaved courageously, encouraging those around her. She spent three long days in a terrible trap, hoping for rescue. On the fourth, she began to hallucinate and died from contracted viruses.

"Unknown Rebel" in Tiananmen Square. This famous photo, taken by Associated Press photographer Jeff Widner, shows a protester holding back a column of tanks for half an hour.

Earthrise photographed for the first time from lunar orbit during the Apollo 8 mission.

Man Ray loved to shoot nudes. But he also loved to experiment with his photographs. One day he did something for which, many years later, they would come up with a program called “Photoshop” and call it “photo processing.” Ray tried to draw a parallel for the viewer between the beautiful forms of a half-naked girl and the smooth curves of the violin. Take a closer look at the photo, it looks like it!!!

On December 30, 2006, the former president of that country, Saddam Hussein, was executed in Iraq. The High Court sentenced him to death for the massacre of Shiites in the city of Dujail in 1982. The execution took place shortly before morning prayers, and was captured on video, which was shown on all national television channels.

Government representatives present at the execution said that Saddam Hussein behaved with dignity and did not ask for mercy. He stated that he was "glad to accept death from his enemies and become a martyr" rather than vegetate in prison for the rest of his days.

All the pain is in just one look... (Henry Cartier Bresson). The photo was taken in 1948-1949, when the author traveled around China. The photo shows a hungry boy standing for long hours in an endless line for rice.

The event depicted in this photograph cannot be called a global catastrophe (of the 97 people on board, 35 died), but it marked the end of the era of airships. The airship "Hindenburg" was the pride of the air fleet of Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler was very sensitive to its loss.

Burial of an unknown child. On December 3, 1984, the Indian city of Bhopal suffered from the largest man-made disaster in human history. A giant toxic cloud released into the atmosphere by an American pesticide plant covered the sleeping city, killing three thousand people that same night. Another 15 thousand people died over the next month. The total number of victims is estimated at 150 thousand people (not counting children born after the disaster).

Niagara Falls is frozen. Photo from 1911.

On June 8, 1972, photographer Nick Yut took a photograph of Vietnamese girl Kim Phuc running from a napalm explosion. The photo thundered throughout the world, but Kim herself saw it for the first time only 14 months later, when she was being treated for terrible burns in Saigon. Kim still remembers the sound of falling bombs and explosions, remembers how she ran, remembers the soldier who poured water on her, mistakenly believing that this would ease her suffering. But water makes napalm burns even worse.

The photographer took the girl to the hospital. He doubted whether to publish the photo, but in the end decided that the world should see it. Nick Utah's photograph was later named best photo 20th century.

In 1982, while Kim Phuc was in medical school, the Vietnamese government found her and began using her for propaganda purposes. Kim was able to escape to Cuba, where she continued her studies and met her future husband. Kim Phuc currently lives in Canada.

In October 1968, this photograph became known throughout the world. Two black athletes, Tommie Smith and John Carlos, won gold and bronze medals for the United States in the 200-meter dash at the Mexico City Olympics. During the playing of the US anthem, they stood with their heads bowed and their hands raised, thus protesting the plight of the black population in the US.

A public protest against discrimination against blacks caused a scandal in the circles of official America; both athletes were quickly expelled from the Olympic team.

One of the best actresses in the history of cinema, Marilyn Monroe, during a break during filming.

Alfred Eisenstadt, a photographer for Life magazine, walked through the square, where there were many soldiers and sailors returning from the war. He noticed a sailor who kissed all the women indiscriminately. When a stunned sailor literally tied up a young nurse, the photographer could not stand it and took a photo that is now known throughout the world as “Unconditional Surrender.”

2006 FIFA World Cup final. On last minutes game, the hope of the French team, Zinedine Zidane, punches Italian Marco Materazzi in the chest. It is not known for certain what Marco Materazzi said to Zidane (who clearly did not live up to the expectations of the French fans), but this gave Zidane a reason to take his anger out on his opponent for a not very successful match. Zinedine Zidane's magnificent career ended with him being sent off.

Atomic mushroom over Nagasaki.

Patterson-Gimlin's 1968 documentary film of Bigfoot is still the only clear photographic evidence of the existence of relict hominids. At the same time, there are a considerable number of images of very low quality that are not suitable for scientific analysis. The authenticity of the shooting is very doubtful, but nevertheless this photograph is known all over the world.

United Press International photographer Kyochi Sawada took this photo on February 24, 1966. Tan Binh, South Vietnam. The American military drags the body of a Viet Cong soldier with an armored personnel carrier.

Photographer Richard Drew calls this image "the most famous photograph that no one has seen." It depicts a man jumping from the burning World Trade Center tower to his death on September 11, 2001.

“On that day, which, more than any other day in history, was captured on cameras and film, the only taboo, by common consent, was the pictures of people jumping from windows” - words of Tom Junod, Esquire magazine

The terrorist attack of September 11, 2001 was planned and carried out by the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda. Four groups of terrorists hijacked four planes, two of which rammed the World Trade Center towers, one crashed into the Pentagon, and one did not reach its target, crashing to the ground due to opposition from the plane's passengers, who learned about the planes that collided with the skyscrapers.

Winston Churchill in this photo is scowling not at the Nazis, but at the photographer Yosuf Karsh, who snatched the cigar straight from the great politician's mouth to give the politician an appearance more befitting the situation of Great Britain in early 1941. It turned out well. Before us is one of the most famous images of Winston Churchill.

Photograph by Pablo Picasso. Picasso himself suggested the plot to the photographer Duvanoushi.

Alberto Korda took this photo at a rally in 1960. The living legend of the Cuban Revolution, Che Guevara, was captured in the frame. Under Fidel Castro, Che Guevara became a minister, and a bright future lay ahead. Instead, he went to Bolivia to bring the light of revolution to the local peasants. They did not appreciate the works of Che Guevara and gave his location to the soldiers, who killed the revolutionary. Well, the photograph has a different fate; it is considered the most replicated in the history of photography.

Three American girls gossip in an alley in the Spanish city of Seville. For a long time, a postcard with this image enjoyed great success in the United States.

Photographer Robert Jackson captured the last moment of the life of Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy. There were people everywhere wanting to tear apart the killer, Robert Jackson took another photo and while the flash was charging, a shot was fired. The photographer captured the moment the trigger was pulled.

Here is a photograph of the Titanic and the iceberg that killed it. In maritime history there have been tragedies with a large number of victims, but the Titanic set off on its first voyage, it was considered unsinkable and the most the best ship of its time. And yet, on April 15, 1912, he drowned and is still the embodiment of carelessness, irresponsibility and arrogance.

March 31, 2003. An Najaw, Iraq. A man tries to ease the suffering of his son in a prison for prisoners of war.

Photographer Stephen McCury took this photo in an Afghan refugee camp on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border in 1985. Soviet helicopters destroyed the village where the girl lived, her entire family died. Before getting to the refugee camp, the girl traveled alone for two weeks through the mountains. Photography has become a shrine National Geographic and one of the most famous photographs of our time.

Geniuses, it turns out, are people too! This became clear after the appearance of a photograph of the brilliant physicist Albert Einstein with his tongue hanging out. The correspondents tormented the genius so much with their requests to put on a cheerful smile on his face that he stuck his tongue out at them in despair. Thanks to this photo, we know Einstein not only as a brilliant physicist, but also as a great original.

November 22, 1963 went down in US history as one of its darkest days. President John F. Kennedy, along with his wife and Texas Governor John Connally, were traveling from the Dallas airport to the city center. More than 200 thousand city residents greeted the president. At some point the car slowed down, at that moment fatal shots were fired.

Photo of the Loch Ness Monster, 1934.

Photographer Robert Capa took this photograph at random, without looking through the viewfinder; it was the only photograph taken during the entire Republican attack. But the moment in the frame was the death of the Republican soldier Federico Borel Garcia. The photo caused a huge shock in society, and Robert Capa, at the age of 25, was called “The Greatest War Photographer in the World.”

The 1975 English Rugby Championship final was attended by the Queen and her entourage, along with a host of politicians. And then a naked man runs out onto the field and takes a “lap of honor” around the stadium. Her Majesty fainted, and the runner was imprisoned for 3 months.

During the capture of Berlin by Soviet troops, Joseph Goebbels, the main ideologist of fascism, poisoned six of his children and his wife, and then took the poison himself. Goebbels's corpse, according to his dying order, was burned. This photo shows what is left of Goebbels. The photograph was taken on May 2, 1945 in the building of the Imperial Chancellery by Major Vasily Krupennikov.

Chechnya, May 1995. A boy looks out the back window of a bus carrying refugees fleeing fighting between Chechen separatists and Russian troops.

The photograph won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize and greatly changed the way ordinary Americans viewed the Vietnam War. But the killed Viet Cong was not an innocent lamb. He was the captain of the North Vietnamese "revenge warriors" and on that day he and his subordinates personally killed many unarmed civilians.

This photo greatly spoiled the life of the South Vietnamese general Nguyen Ngoc Lon, in whose hands there was a pistol. They refused to treat him in an Australian military hospital; after moving to the United States, a campaign was launched against him for his immediate deportation; the restaurant he opened in Virginia was constantly attacked by vandals.

The inscription above the entrance to the Nazi death camp Auschwitz reads: “Work makes you free.” Several million people read it while passing under the arch depicted in the photograph, and only a few thousand were lucky enough to survive. No place on Earth is so saturated with pain, suffering and despair as these several thousand hectares of Polish Silesia.

Banner of Victory over the Reichstag. Evgeny Khaldey, 1945. Despite the end of the fighting, hoisting the banner over the Reichstag was a risky business. Single Nazi fanatics repeatedly knocked down the banners with targeted fire.

US Marines plant the US flag on the Japanese island of Iwo Jima on February 23, 1945. Highest point on Iwo Jima long time was the scene of bloody battles, the first time the American flag was hoisted on it was when the Japanese resistance in this part of the island was not completely broken. In the picture we can see the flag being reinstalled; the picture became one of the symbols of the US victory in the Pacific War.

Japanese resistance on the islands of Iwo Jima and Okinawa was desperate and the Americans suffered heavy losses. Analysts calculated that with such opposition, the capture of the two main Japanese islands would cost the American Marines more than a million lives. These calculations became a death sentence for the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

This photograph shows one of the last cases of lynching in the United States. 1930: A mob of 10,000 hangs two black men for raping a white woman and murdering her boyfriend. Large quantity joyful faces and it’s hard to blame them for it (unless black people were simply scapegoated, of course).

Photographs by war photojournalist Robert Capa are already on our list; this time the brave photographer took part in the landing of the Allied forces in Normandy, with only a camera as his weapon. On the morning of June 6, 1944, Capa, along with the advanced units of the Marines, set foot on the shores of Normandy, came under fire and was forced to dive underwater to save his life.

That day, the photographer shot 4 films, but the laboratory assistant, developing the films, was in too much of a hurry to be in time for the printing of the latest issue of Life magazine and ruined them. Only 11 frames survived, and those were damaged. But it was this marriage that gave the surviving photographs their famous surrealism.

This kiss became the first photograph to be universally recognized in America. Photo taken in public place and the photographer was allegedly put on trial for voyeurism. They say that the man captured in the photo admitted that the photographer saw their kiss, but did not have time to take a photo and asked to repeat it.

The photo was taken a couple of years before Great Depression. The shelves are full of goods, people have money to buy.

In April 2004, CBS aired a story about the abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq. The story featured photographs that were published in media outlets around the world. The effect was such that a couple of weeks later the American command expressed its readiness to publicly apologize for the inappropriate actions of the military personnel.

According to the prisoners' testimony, they were raped, forced to eat from toilets, ridden on horseback, beaten, and subjected to electric shocks.

The girl in the photo is called Teresa, she grew up in a German concentration camp. When she was asked to draw a house, she drew barbed wire... David Seymour, 1948.

On September 7, 1996, the car in which famous rapper Tupac Shakur was driving was shot up in Las Vegas. 4 bullets hit the artist, and after 6 days in critical condition he died. The murder was never solved.

Genetic engineering works wonders. In the photo you can see a mouse that has grown a human ear on its back.

Lina Medina is the youngest mother in medical history. She gave birth to a boy at the age of 5 years and 7 months by caesarean section (a similar case occurred in Russia). Initially, Lina’s parents decided that the girl had some kind of tumor and brought her to the hospital, where the true state of affairs became clear. By this time, Lina was 7 months pregnant. The born child weighed 2.7 kg. and grew up healthy. Only at the age of 10 did he learn that Lina was not his older sister, but his mother. The child's father remains unknown.

Dolly the Sheep. The first living creature artificially born by cloning from the cell of another adult animal. Lived for 6 years. Since then, experiments with cloning have been carried out repeatedly, but the animals born have always had much more health problems than animals born using the good old traditional method of reproducing their own kind.

Golden Lebanese youth on an excursion in the bombed areas of the city. Spencer Platt August 15, 2006

Uganda. Hungry boy and missionary. 1980 Mike Wells

Death of a Nazi functionary and his family. Vienna, 1945. Author - Evgeniy Khaldey. The fascist shot his wife, son and daughter, and then shot himself.

Famine in Sudan. Pulitzer Prize for 1994. The photo was taken in 1993 by Kevin Carter in a village in Sudan that had been wiped out by famine. Kevin Carter flew to Sudan to film scenes of famine. He photographed many people who died of hunger and a little away from the extinct village he discovered this girl. A vulture sat next to her and waited for her to die. Kevin took a photo and then cried for a long time.

Kevin Carter died the same year he won the Pulitzer Prize for this photo. His mental health was undermined.

Consequences of freezing rain. Zurich, Switzerland

Photographer Malcolm Brown received phone call with a proposal to be at one of the crossroads of Saigon at a certain time. He came. Soon a car drove up there and several Buddhist monks got out. One of them sat in the lotus position, holding matches in his hands. The others began to pour gasoline on him. Then the sitting monk struck a match and turned into a flaming torch. The burning Buddhist did not make a sound.

It was a protest against the oppression of Buddhist monks in Vietnam.

The beginning of the Second World War. Poland, September 1, 1939. German troops cross the Polish border.

Death photograph of Princess Diana. For 10 years, no one could dare to publish this photo. And with his appearance, the word “paparazzi” became a dirty word. The person who took this photo was accused of not trying to help. He was taking photographs.