Pictures can be powerful mediums of depicting a situation because as they say a picture speaks a thousand words. Since the time of photography, photos vintage and new have spoken out to us conjuring up emotions that make us feel an event or an incident even though on celluloid. Current events, disasters, moments of joy, happiness and sadness can all be described through a photo shot at the precise moment freezing it in a game. One also needs to give credit to the excellent photographers who have given us some of the most powerful pictures in history. Here are 16 such photos that have stood the test of time as the most famous photos in past and recent history.
Belarus Konstantin Pronin was 86 when this photo was taken. A World War II veteran, he would come every year to Moscow to participate in the parade along with his mates. But on May 9th 2011, He was seen sitting in Gorky Park alone waiting for them to turn up but none showed up and they were presumably deceased. Pronin was the only surviving member of his unit.
Belarus Konstantin Pronin The only war survivor of a unit
Like Pronin, this photo was taken during the victory day parade in St Petersburg Russia in 2007. It showed a WWII veteran walking alone in the wiping tears from his eyes. The picture was a powerful one that became viral over the internet. Later major tabloids found that the picture was taken by photographer Aleksandr Petrosyan but he was unable to identify who the man was as he had randomly clicked the photo. The identity of the crying man is still a mystery.
The crying veteran marching alone
The Massive Tsunami that devastated Japan shocked people worldwide as what seemed to be a disaster movie unfolded on news across the world. The devastation was vast and unimaginable where many photos like these aptly summed up the Heart wrenching tragedy.
This photo of Akane Ito 29 became a symbol of the cruel disaster. Ito had just gone out to buy batteries and emergency supplies after the magnitude 9 earthquake struck Japan. She left her 10 pet dogs in her second floor apartment but when she returned the tsunami had destroyed the building whose rubble can be seen behind her. She was reunited with two of her dogs in the next few weeks but never ever found the others.
Girl devastated during Tsunami tragedy in Japan
This isn’t some Van Gogh painting but an actual scene of the Sossusvelie sand dunes in Namibia’s desert. The classic red sand dunes were formed millions of years ago. The red sand is formed by the deposits of the Orange River into the Atlantic Ocean where the Benguela current carries the sand again northwards to be deposited back inland where the wind carries it to form dunes over time.
Red Sand dunes of Namibia
Several gruesome photos like these have been shot by the Nazis themselves who turned out to be the prime sources of evidence against their own crimes. This is a member of the elite SS Death Squad called Einsatzgruppe in the process of shooting a Jewish man. The cruel emotional methods employed by the squad didn’t spare people even before death where men like the one in the photo were made to kneel before mass graves before being shot in the head. This photo was taken in Vinnitsa, Ukraine in 1941. All the Jews living in Vinnitsa were massacred by the Nazis.
The Last Jew Vinnitsa
The Hubble deep space telescope paints a petty picture as it captures hundreds of galaxies and stars just like they were billions of years ago. What we see as stars are the light of those celestial bodies emitted billions and millions of years ago, so effectively the light of a star is actually its past.
Stars in outer space
The Spirit (2004) Opportunity (2004) and Curiosity (2012) are Mars Rovers launched by NASA and still operational on the red planet. However, the spirit got trapped in sand and functioned as stationary rover. Communications ceased in 2011 but the latter two rovers have provided incredible insight of Mars and are still operational. This is a photo taken by the spirit rover in 2005 of a sunset on the horizon of Mars.
Sunset on Mars
This photo is iconic also for the sign on the left that says “prepare to meet thy god”. The picture is of a British Army EOD Technical Officer walking towards a suspected bomb on Manor Street and Old park Road junction in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
Prepare to meet thy god
Although his moon walk and footprint o the moon photo was the most iconic of the times, this photograph of Neil Armstrong inside his spacecraft and smiling after he had just walked on the moon became equally famous.
The man on the moon
Another iconic picture of World War II showing the sheer relief and happiness of Jewish prisoners being rescued form a train that was most probably transporting them to their death. The photograph was taken just a few moments after they learned that they were actually being rescued and not offloaded off to camp.
Happiness of Jewish prisoners being rescued form a train
The Nazi gatherings at Nuremburg became a regular feature from 1933. This is one such massive gathering of Hitler’s supporters at Nuremburg in 1937. The photograph has been attributed to one of Hitler’s personal photographers.
Massive gathering of Hitler supporters at Nuremburg in 1937
This is a photo of 29 year old Hhaing The Yu holding his face in his hands and helpless at the rain falling over his damaged home in Yangon (Rangoon) the capital of Myanmar after Cyclone Nargis devastated Southern Myanmar in May 2008. It obliterated thousands of thatched hut homes and killed more than 100,000 people.
Aftermath of Cyclone Nargis
Why should only humans be part of the most powerful pictures? This is as powerful a photo as any. It is a photograph of the funeral of Zanjeer the sniffer Labrador who saved thousands of lives during the serial bomb blasts that shook Mumbai India in Mach 1993. The dog detected more than 600 detonators, 3,329 kgs of RDX, 249 hand grenades and 6406 rounds of live ammunition. Zanjeer was buried with full police honors in 2000.
Funeral of Zanjeer the sniffer Labrador who saved thousands of lives
This is another powerful photo of the tragedy of war as it leaves families scared and anguished at the thought of sons, brothers, lover’s fathers and husbands off to war with the probability that they may never see them again. This classic photo was taken by Claude P. Dettloff in New Westminster, Canada, on October 1, 1940.
This classic powerful photo was taken by Claude P Dettloff in New Westminster in Canada on October 1st 1940
Terri Gurrola a military doctor was deployed in Iraq for a year and thought her three year old daughter Gaby would have forgotten her. But that wasn’t so because when she got off the flight back home to Atlanta, she heard Gaby calling her name after she was greeted by an officer. In her own words.
“I was crying tears of joy for the fact that Gaby hadn’t forgotten me. When I finally came up for air, I saw that every single person in that airport was crying, too. Men, women – I kid you not: they were all just bawling.”
Terri Gurrola reunites with her daughter
Although this seems heart-wrenching and cruel to bring it up time and again, still the little frail body of three-year-old Aylan Kurdi drowned and washed up on a beach off the Mediterranean Sea is the stark reminder not just of the refugee crisis but of the inhumanity that haunts our planet. The photo was taken on 2nd September 2015 by journalist Nilufer Demir. It went viral across the world and forced governments to respond to the crisis. This photo could well be said to be the most powerful photograph in recent history reminding us of how we are enslaved by our own human failings, our rigidity, and restrictions.
Image Source: www.smh.com.au
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