Thursday, June 4, 2009

Mine is the The "Tank Man" What's Yours?


I've been thinking about the Tiananmen Square Massacre as this sad 20th anniversary occurs. Looking again at the powerful image of the lone man standing in front of a column tanks I realized, that for me, this is the most powerful image taken during my lifetime. There are others that come close but nothing has quite surpassed the Tank Man. I still get choked up about it these 2 decades later.

Here's part one of the Tank Man doc posted in youtube:


link to the playlist for the whole doc here


I was talking to a buddy at work and asked him what he felt was the most important image taken during his lifetime. Since he's older than me, he said the photo of the earth shot from the moon. Interesting!

What image taken during your lifetime is the most important to you?


-Swinebread

4 comments:

Randal Graves said...

In one of my snarkier moments, accounting for about 95% of my waking hours, I might go with the shot of the infamous Murkan moran. But upon deeper reflection, this really might be THE iconic image post-Vietnam, at least in the states.

Whoever that dude was, he had a big ole sack of brass spheres.

Dean Wormer said...

Sort of like yours.

I get choked up everytime I think about the Germans dancing and celebrating on top of the Berlin Wall once East Germany collapsed. Such a great testament to the slow, unstoppable progress of freedom.

Second would be the Challenger blowing up or the Twin Towers. Although that last image has been sullied by crass political opportunists.

ladybug said...

I always remember the naked Vietnamese girl (and other civilians) running away from the Napalm bombing...and of the street execution of a suspected Viet Cong by an anti-commmunist Viet soldier...

So I've always been anti-war.

Dr. Zaius said...

This one.