We are in the digital age where it seems as if anything that happens of importance will most likely be caught on camera somehow, someway. It has been like this for some time now, but it does seem to be getting worse with all the dash cameras and almost every human being having a smart phone in their pocket that has a camera on it. So we wanted to take a few minutes to point out some of the most ionic photos up to this point.
PHOTO: CNN
In 1951 on Einsteins 72nd Birthday, photographer Arthur Sasse was trying to get Albert to smile but the Nobel Prize-winning genius apparently was tired of smiling for photos and decided to stick out his tongue instead. This photo ended up becoming one of the most recognizable photos of Einstein and he supposedly like it so much that he asked for 9 copies; one of which he signed that later went on to fetch $74,000 at auction in 2009
PHOTO: CNN
This picture known as the “iconic Kiss” was a celebratory kiss in the middle of Time Square because of the end of World War II. The sailor was apparently so overcome with joy that we would not have to go back to war, he grabbed the closest women and laid a big old kiss on her. The photographer didn’t get the names of the people in the picture and over the years many people came forward claiming to be the kissers but none have been confirmed. When talking to the woman in the photo she said that she didn’t know the sailor and it wasn’t that good of kiss, she just felt happy for him that he no longer had to go back to war.
PHOTO: CNN
In Tienanmen Square just after a crackdown by the Peoples Liberation Army in Beijing China 1989, a lone Chinese protester Stands in front of a line of tanks as an act of rebellion. Many photographers got a picture of this intense moment and then later received a World Press Photo Award.
Vietnam War photographer Eddie Adams was in South Vietnam taking photos of the war when he came across General NGuyen Ngoc Loan who was a South Vietnamese Police Chief. Loan had a Viet Cong suspect with a gun to his head in the middle of Saigon Street during the early stages of the TET offensive in 1968. Loan pulled the trigger and Adams snapped a picture of the exact moment. Later Adams said he felt bad about taking the photo but also felt as if it was important to show the severity of the situation going on.
PHOTO: CNN
September 11, 2001 was one of the worst, if not the worst, days in American History. When the Twin Towers were struck, every person in America, if not the world, felt that pain and out hearts went out to everyone affected that day. Photographer Richard Drew captured this photo of a man that had jumped out of the Twin Towers and many felt that Drew was being insensitive when he published the picture. But Drew felt as if the man in the picture was a “unknown soldier” that hopefully represents all of the people that had the same fate that day. It is estimated that as many as 200 people jumped that day.