Powerful Photos in History

Photography began just under two centuries ago, and has developed as a documentation of the human condition. This post is my own list of 20 images I considered very powerfully moving or meaningful from the last 200 years while growing up, and not comprehensive of many more famous images. As preface, these mostly involve a US-centric lens, as I still need to learn more about images and history from other regions of the world.

Trigger warning for graphic content. For mobile readers, landscape view is recommended.

---

1800s

The First Photograph / 1826

Taken by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce, this picture depicts the view from his window in France using heliography. You can see the roof and walls of nearby buildings.

First Photograph of a Human / 1838

Taken by Louis Daguerre, this photograph was intended as a long-exposure of Paris. The man in the bottom left receiving a shoe shine was able to be captured by sitting stationary.

Gordon / 1863

Taken by William McPherson. Gordon was a slave whipped by his master.

Bison Fertilizer / 1870

Hunters stand atop around 100,000 bison skulls to be crushed for fertilizer. North America inhabited an estimated 50 million bison when Europeans arrived, but they were hunted for their skin to nearly extinction.

The First X-Ray / 1895

Taken by Wilhelm Röntgen of his wife’s hand. Medical advancements have come a long way.

---

1900-1950

The Congo / 1904

Taken by Alice Harris. A Congolese man stares at the cut-off limbs of his daughter for not having met his rubber quota. The consequence of European colonialism. She was 5 years old.

Afloat / 1912

The last photo of the Titanic afloat.

Russian Famine / 1921

A couple selling human meat of children as a means to get by.

Migrant Mother / 1936

The symbol of the Great Depression, Florence Owens Thompson worked hard to provide for her six children.

The Last Jew in Vinnitsa / 1941

The execution of the last Jew in Vinnitsa during the Holocaust.

---

1950-2000

Photo 51 / 1952

Taken by Raymond Gosling under Rosalind Franklin. The first diffraction image of crystallized DNA, helping identify DNA’s helical structure.

La Jeune Fille a la Fleur / 1967

Taken by Marc Riboud. Activist Jan Kasmir places a flower on a soldier guarding the Pentagon from Vietnam War protesters, sparking the Flower Power Movement.

The Blue Marble / 1972

Taken by the crew of Apollo 17. Sorry Flat-Earthers.

Omayra Sánchez / 1985

Taken by Frank Fournier. Omayra Sánchez was a 13 year old girl killed by the Nevado del Ruiz volcano eruption. Without proper government aid or accountability, she couldn’t be saved after three days being crushed under concrete.

The Vulture and the Little Girl / 1993

Taken by Kevin Carter. A starved child collapses attempting to reach the UN feeding center, while a vulture waits nearby. Carter committed suicide four months after taking this photo.

---

2000s

Falling Man / 09.11.2001

Taken by Richard Drew. A man leaps from the Twin Towers during the 9/11 attacks. His death was not ruled a suicide, for he did not wake up that morning intending to take his own life.

Abu Ghraib / April 2004

Iraqi prisoner, Abdou Hussain Saad Faleh, being tortured by US soldiers. A revelation in the evil of all sides in war.

Pride / 06.26.2015

The White House lit up after the legalization of same-sex marriage.

Sudan / 03.19.2018

Sudan, the last male of the Northern White Rhinos, is comforted by his caretaker before passing. The subspecies is now naturally extinct.

Black Hole / 04.10.2019

The first ever photo taken of a black hole, three million times the size of Earth.

---

There are infinitely more images that tell messages of empathy and cruelty by humanity. I hope this visual-centric post helps us remember that what we read in the news is not always representative of what really happens in our world.

As a photo can say more than any amount of words used to describe its content, not just one thousand.

-

Edit (12.19.2019) - this article by The Atlantic highlights powerful photos from the 2010s. Let’s see what the 20s bring us.