Most Iconic Photographs Ever Taken

Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima

Joe Rosenthal's shutter click atop Mount Suribachi captured five Marines and a Navy corpsman hoisting a flagpole, and the image became an instant sensation, winning the Pulitzer Prize within weeks. It was later cast in bronze as the Marine Corps War Memorial, cementing its place

Year Taken: 1945Photographer: Joe RosenthalLocation: Iwo Jima, JapanHistorical Impact: 10/10Global Recognition: 10/10Won Pulitzer Prize: ✓

added by IJRin 3 rankingsRaising the Flag on Iwo Jima

V-J Day in Times Square

Alfred Eisenstaedt's snapshot of a sailor kissing a stranger in Times Square as war-weary crowds celebrated Japan's surrender distilled a nation's relief into one embrace. Published in Life magazine, it became shorthand for the end of WWII, even as the identities of its subjects

Year Taken: 1945Photographer: Alfred EisenstaedtLocation: New York City, USAHistorical Impact: 9/10Global Recognition: 10/10Won Pulitzer Prize: —

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Earthrise

Taken almost by accident by astronaut William Anders aboard Apollo 8, this shot of Earth rising over the lunar horizon gave humanity its first real look at itself from space. Nature photographer Galen Rowell called it 'the most influential environmental photograph ever taken,' cr

Year Taken: 1968Photographer: William AndersLocation: Lunar orbitHistorical Impact: 9/10Global Recognition: 9/10Won Pulitzer Prize: —

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Tank Man

An anonymous man in a white shirt, shopping bags in hand, stood alone in front of a column of tanks near Tiananmen Square, and Jeff Widener's photo from a hotel balcony froze that defiance forever. His identity and fate remain unknown, which only deepens the photograph's mythic w

Year Taken: 1989Photographer: Jeff WidenerLocation: Beijing, ChinaHistorical Impact: 10/10Global Recognition: 9/10Won Pulitzer Prize: —

added by IJRin 3 rankingsTank Man

The Terror of War (Napalm Girl)

Nick Ut's photo of nine-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc fleeing a napalm attack, screaming and burned down a Vietnamese road, shocked the world and helped turn American public opinion against the war. It won the Pulitzer Prize and World Press Photo of the Year, despite early editorial

Year Taken: 1972Photographer: Nick UtLocation: Trảng Bàng, VietnamHistorical Impact: 10/10Global Recognition: 9/10Won Pulitzer Prize: ✓

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Migrant Mother

Dorothea Lange spent ten minutes with Florence Owens Thompson and her children at a California pea-pickers camp, and the resulting portrait of gaunt worry became the face of the Great Depression. Commissioned by the Farm Security Administration, it was never copyrighted and sprea

Year Taken: 1936Photographer: Dorothea LangeLocation: Nipomo, California, USAHistorical Impact: 9/10Global Recognition: 9/10Won Pulitzer Prize: —

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Buzz Aldrin on the Moon

Neil Armstrong's photograph of Buzz Aldrin standing on the lunar surface, Armstrong himself reflected tiny in Aldrin's visor, is the picture most people conjure when they think 'moon landing.' It turned an engineering triumph into a human portrait, proof that people, not just mac

Year Taken: 1969Photographer: Neil ArmstrongLocation: Sea of Tranquility, MoonHistorical Impact: 9/10Global Recognition: 10/10Won Pulitzer Prize: —

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Afghan Girl

Steve McCurry's National Geographic cover of a green-eyed Afghan refugee, Sharbat Gula, became one of the most recognized magazine images ever published, likened to a modern 'Mona Lisa.' Her identity was unknown for 17 years until McCurry tracked her down using iris-recognition t

Year Taken: 1984Photographer: Steve McCurryLocation: Peshawar, PakistanHistorical Impact: 8/10Global Recognition: 9/10Won Pulitzer Prize: —

added by IJRAfghan Girl

Raising a Flag over the Reichstag

Yevgeny Khaldei staged Soviet soldiers raising a flag over the ruined Reichstag just after Berlin fell, later retouching the image to remove looted watches from a soldier's wrist. Despite the manipulation, it became the Soviet Union's defining visual of victory over Nazi Germany,

Year Taken: 1945Photographer: Yevgeny KhaldeiLocation: Berlin, GermanyHistorical Impact: 9/10Global Recognition: 8/10Won Pulitzer Prize: —

added by IJRRaising a flag over the Reichstag

Guerrillero Heroico (Che Guevara)

Alberto Korda's portrait of Che Guevara, taken at a memorial rally in Havana and initially unpublished, went on to become arguably the most reproduced photograph in history, printed on flags, t-shirts, and murals worldwide. Korda never collected royalties, watching his image of r

Year Taken: 1960Photographer: Alberto KordaLocation: Havana, CubaHistorical Impact: 8/10Global Recognition: 9/10Won Pulitzer Prize: —

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The Blue Marble

Snapped by the Apollo 17 crew on their way to the Moon, this full-disk photograph of Earth bathed in sunlight became one of the most widely distributed images ever made, reprinted on posters, flags, and textbooks for fifty years. Unlike Earthrise's accidental composition, this sh

Year Taken: 1972Photographer: Apollo 17 crewLocation: Space, en route to MoonHistorical Impact: 8/10Global Recognition: 9/10Won Pulitzer Prize: —

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The Falling Man

Richard Drew's photograph of a man plunging from the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, captured with eerie, geometric stillness, was published once and then largely suppressed for being 'too disturbing.' Decades later it's recognized as one of the only images to confront

Year Taken: 2001Photographer: Richard DrewLocation: New York City, USAHistorical Impact: 8/10Global Recognition: 8/10Won Pulitzer Prize: —

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The Vulture and the Little Girl

Kevin Carter's photograph of a starving Sudanese child stalked by a vulture during a famine won the Pulitzer Prize but ignited fierce backlash over why he didn't intervene. The controversy, combined with the horror of the image itself, contributed to Carter's suicide just months

Year Taken: 1993Photographer: Kevin CarterLocation: Ayod, SudanHistorical Impact: 8/10Global Recognition: 8/10Won Pulitzer Prize: ✓

added by IJRThe vulture and the little girl

Lunch atop a Skyscraper

Eleven ironworkers casually eat lunch on a girder 850 feet above Manhattan with no safety harnesses, a publicity shot for Rockefeller Center that became an enduring symbol of Depression-era grit and skyscraper-building bravado. Its exact photographer was disputed for decades amon

Year Taken: 1932Photographer: Charles C. Ebbets (attributed)Location: New York City, USAHistorical Impact: 7/10Global Recognition: 8/10Won Pulitzer Prize: —

added by IJRin 2 rankingsLunch atop a Skyscraper

The Kiss by the Hôtel de Ville

Robert Doisneau's photograph of a couple kissing amid a blurred Parisian street scene came to define postwar romance in the popular imagination, selling millions of posters. Decades later, Doisneau admitted the moment was staged with paid models, not the spontaneous embrace fans

Year Taken: 1950Photographer: Robert DoisneauLocation: Paris, FranceHistorical Impact: 6/10Global Recognition: 8/10Won Pulitzer Prize: —

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Einstein Sticking Out His Tongue

On his 72nd birthday, a weary Albert Einstein stuck out his tongue at photographers as he left a party, and Arthur Sasse's snapshot turned the world's most famous genius into a mischievous icon. Einstein loved it so much he cropped copies himself to send to friends. It humanized

Year Taken: 1951Photographer: Arthur SasseLocation: Princeton, New Jersey, USAHistorical Impact: 5/10Global Recognition: 8/10Won Pulitzer Prize: —

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Dalí Atomicus

Philippe Halsman spent six hours and 28 attempts throwing cats, water, and furniture into the air to capture Salvador Dalí seemingly suspended mid-leap alongside flying felines and an easel. The surrealist collaboration between photographer and artist became a landmark of staged

Year Taken: 1948Photographer: Philippe HalsmanLocation: New York City, USAHistorical Impact: 5/10Global Recognition: 7/10Won Pulitzer Prize: —

added by IJRDalí Atomicus

Pillars of Creation

Captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in the Eagle Nebula, these towering columns of interstellar gas and dust became astronomy's most recognizable image, reproduced on everything from postage stamps to album covers. It showed the public that deep space could be achingly beautif

Year Taken: 1995Photographer: Hubble Space Telescope (NASA/ESA)Location: Eagle Nebula, deep spaceHistorical Impact: 6/10Global Recognition: 7/10Won Pulitzer Prize: —

added by IJRPillars of Creation