Iconic Photos

The SS Morro Castle, named after a fortress that guards Havana Bay, was a luxury cruise ship of the 1930s that was built for the Ward Line for runs between New York City and Havana, Cuba. In the early morning hours (around 3:00 am) of Saturday, 8 September 1934, en route from Havana to New York, the ship caught fire and burned, killing a total of 137 passengers and crew members.

Despite attempts to tow her to a safer location, the ship continued to drift toward shore. By 7:30 pm, she came to rest on the beach at the foot of Sixth Avenue in the summer resort town of Asbury Park, N.J. Carl Nesensohn, N.Y. Times Wide World photographer (who took above photo) arrived with other news cameramen in the late afternoon. They made photos of the victims and the burning hulk. Early the next morning, Nesensohn decided to board the smouldering ship.

A Coast Guard patrol boat threatened to shoot him down as he first attempted to board Morro Castle from a hired boat. Enraged, Carl Nesensohn stormed into Coast Guard Headquarters, shouting about the government threatening to shoot a newspaperman; how would it look in the newspaper? Coast Guard finally gave Carl permission to board the shio.

Onboard Morro Castle, the steel deck plates were still hot. Flames, noxious gases, smoke, minor explosions and charred corpses surrounded him. He took the first photos of the burned-out interior of the Morro Castle for two and a half hours, after which he returned to shore, his clothing torn, his shoes almost burnt through and his face covered with soot.

Later, N.Y. Daily News photographer Larry Froeber attempted the same thing, but he was overcome by poisonous fumes. However, he got back safely. The Morro Castle disaster set the standard for daring photojournalism–the coverage was excellent, but the courage of the photographers defined the day.

Officially, the cause of the fire was never determined, but the design of the ship, the materials used in its construction,  questionable crew practices and mistakes escalated the on-board fire to a roaring inferno that eventually destroyed the ship. The fire, however, was a catalyst for improved shipboard fire safety–the use of fire retardant materials, automatic fire doors, ship-wide fire alarms, and fire drills were direct results of the Morro Castle disaster.

May 28th, 1987. A promising American intelligence asset who went by the name of ‘Gentile’ was compromised by two of the most infamous Soviet moles in U.S. intelligence history–Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen. ‘Gentile’ was a mediocre source, but he was a younger officer with the chance to grow into a more important asset.

His real name was Valery Martynov, a Lieutenant Colonel in the KGB. He was working in Line X, the KGB division charged with stealing scientific and technical intelligence at the Soviet Embassy in Washington, D.C. in 1982, when he turned to the American side. Through Ames of the CIA and Hanssen of the FBI, the Russians eventually learnt about Martynov and tricked him into returning to Moscow where he was duly arrested (above, rare KGB file photo) and executed on that fateful May day.

He was one of the 25 agents betrayed by Ames. Hanssen betrayed around 50 human sources or recruitment targets.

For Christy Turlington’s fortieth birthday, W magazine created this wonderful slideshow, but the above picture by Harry Benson was notably missing.

When this picture was taken at the backstage of a Parisian fashion show in 1994, Turlington was at the peak of her success. Her stress-ravaged face partially hidden behind the smoke does not show her supermodel-dom or million-dollar career, but her body was in the news for the entirety of 1993. That year she became the first celebrity to wear a navel piercing, contributing to its eventual mainstream popularity; she also posed nude for PETA’s anti-fur campaign. Her face–which was representing Chanel and Burberry–received its own share of adoration too: it was used on 120 mannequins by the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, causing her to be called the ‘Face of the 20th Century’.

In 1994, after the above photo, she became the face of Salvatore Ferragamo and Oscar de la Renta, but another year would pass before she would quit smoking. A chain smoker who smoked up to a pack of cigarettes a day between the ages of 13 and 26, Christy would finally call it quits in 1995, after being diagnosed with early-stage emphysema and after losing her father to lung cancer. Turlington went on to become one of America’s most recognizable voices against smoking, launching a website SmokingIsUgly.com.

It was the most famous water polo match in history. Even before the match, the tensions were high. An October student demonstration in Hungary led to the Soviet invasion of that country from November 4th-10th. A month later, on December 6th, Hungary and the USSR met in the semi-finals of the Melbourne Olympics. During the Uprising, the defending champion Hungarian team was training in a mountain camp above Budapest and they were later moved to Czechoslovakia to avoid being caught in the revolution. The players learnt of the true extent of the uprising only after arriving in Australia.

In Melbourne, when Olympic officials raised the Hungarian flag with communist Rákosi coat of arms, many objected for it not being the Kossuth flag adopted during the Hungarian uprising. The flag was vandalized one night, with the communist emblem being removed from the center and replaced by the Kossuth Arms with a mark of mourning. When the Olympic staff requested clarification from the newly formed, free Federal government, they were informed that the Kossuth Arms flag was being flown in Budapest and was therefore the correct flag.

On the game day, the Hungarian team devised a strategy to taunt the Russians, whose language they had been forced to study in school. From the beginning, kicks and punches were exchanged. The Hungarian captain’s punching a Russian was caught on film; however, the infamous incident came during the last two minutes when a Soviet player punched Hungarian star-player Ervin Zádor (who had scored two goals earlier) in the eye. When Zádor left the pool (above), the frenzied crowd jumped on to the concourse beside the pool, shook their fists, shouted abuse and spat at the Russians. To avoid a riot, police–who had obviously been waiting out of sight–entered the arena with one minute to go and shepherded the crowd away.

It was one of the ugliest episodes in the Olympic Games’ history. Hungary won the game 4–0, and beat Yugoslavia 2–1 in the final to defend the title. After the medal ceremony, Zador burst into tears. “I was crying for Hungary because I knew I wouldn’t be returning home,” he said. Indeed, fully half of the 100-member Hungarian Olympic delegation, including Zador, defected after the Melbourne Games.

The above picture littled “Henri Le Secq et La Stryge“* was by Charles Nègre (1820–1880), a pioneering French photographer. Le Secq himself was a photographer and both of them made photos as large as 20 by 29 inches called ‘calotypes’, and recorded the cathedrals of Notre-Dame (Paris), Chartres, and Amiens and other ancient architectural masterpieces. Nègre, was trained as a painter under Delaroche, Ingres and Drolling before deciding to use photography as research for painting.

In Gargoyle of Notre Dame (1851) as it came to be known as, the gargoyle seems more alive, more animate, than his human companion Le Secq. The gargoyle’s features are large and invisible, but they overpower smaller, shadow-obscured features of Le Secq and convey more forcefully a sense of life. In this shadow, one can clearly see Le Secq’s enormous beard–an obvious political statement; in 1848, the Ministry of Public Instruction banned college professors from wearing beards because they were ‘the symbols of anarchy”. The photo was also a Hugolian propaganda, in the honor of Victor Hugo who fled Paris for the fear of his life a year before.

The gargoyle, under the light of this Hugolâtre leanings, seems to have dual significance. On one hand, it is the symbol of weight and oppression of un unchangable past curved in stone; on the other, it stood watch over Paris, a homely demon secured against all the horrors of the new regime under Napoleon III. In the heavily censored police state of France in the 1850s, the photo was a surreptitous jab at the authorities.

Winslow Homer transformed this photo in his painting Gargoyles at the Notre Dame,  reversing roles and postures of man and beast in the picture. In Negre’s photo, the gargoyle muses and the man looks; in the painting, the man muses and the gargoyle looks. Poised, confidant dandy of the world in Negre’s photo, Homer’s Le Secq was a plain, retrospective man–almost a self-portrait of Homer.

‘Stryge‘ is a kind of night spirit from oriental legends, a mix between a woman and a bird.

This memorable picture of Annie Oakley was taken by the Italian Court (and photographer) Giuseppe  Primoli (1851-1927) as Ms. Oakley was in Rome with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show in 1890. Sharpshooter Oakley, born Phoebe Ann Mosey, joined the troupe only five years before. Only 5 feet tall, Oakley was nicknamed “Watanya Cicilla” (Little Sure Shot) by fellow performer Sitting Bull.

While Europe, she performed for Queen Victoria, and other crowned heads of state. In Berlin’s Charlottenburg Race Course, it nearly turned into a disaster (or a blessing). Annie announced that she would shot the ashes off any man or woman’s Havana cigar. Normally her husband Frank Butler come out of the audience and her speech was just for show. Unexpectedly, Kaiser Wilhelm II accepted her offer; the police thought it was a joke until the Kaiser took his position and told the police to get out of the way.  Annie Oakley raised her pistol, aimed and blew the ashes off Kaiser Wilhelm II cigar. When World War I started, Annie wrote the Kaiser asking for a second chance. The Kaiser did not respond.

Giuseppe Napoleone Primoli was born into a dynastic branch of the Bonaparte dynasty. Honored as “photography’s missing link” between Nadar and Cartier-Bresson, Primoli recorded picturesque Roman street scenes, political events, and the leisure activities of Europe’s glitterati, earning a posthumous reputation as a progenitor of action photography and the photo-essay. His pursuit of the instantané (the instantenous) was the precursor to the snapshot and HCB’s decisive moment. Guiseppe and his brother Luigi were the most prolific photographers in Italy. Exploiting the freedom granted by the new hand-held cameras, Giuseppe left behind more than 15, 000 images, while another 17, 000 were purportedly destroyed. The collection is now housed in the Primoli Foundation, Rome.

Although this photo failed to replicate the media sensation that surrounded the “Surgeon’s photographs“, it is nonetheless one of the clearest photos of the  elusive Loch Ness monster ever taken.  Taken on May 21, 1977 on Anthony ‘Doc’ Shiels, the picture was so clear and so fake (no ripples around the neck) that the experts immediately referred to as “the Loch Ness Muppet.”

Shiels was a self-styled psychic, showman and ‘wizard’ entertainer who pursued the career as a professional monster hunter. Despite apparently faking the photo, Shiels himself commented that he didn’t believe in the lake monsters. Although he failed to rekindle the public interest over Loch Ness, he (and his family) did gain national publicity.

On 22 October, 1895, the Granville-Paris Express rail engine 120-721 failed to stop at the platform at Gare Montparnasse and overran the buffer stop. The engine careened across almost 100 feet of the station concourse, crashed through a two foot thick wall, shot across a terrace and sailed out of the station, plummeting onto the Place de Rennes 33 feet below where it stood on its nose.

All on board the train survived, five sustaining injuries: two passengers, the fireman and two crewmembers; however, one woman on the street below was killed by falling masonry. The accident was caused by a faulty Westinghouse brake and the engine drivers who were trying to make up for lost time. The conductor incurred a 25 franc penalty and the engine driver a 50 franc penalty; he was also sent to prison for two months.

A photo by H. Roger-Viollet (below) also recorded the accident, but it was the anonymous photo above that became a curious icon of the incident, repeatedly printed on posters, coffee mugs, and album covers. Its story was recounted in in the 2007 children’s novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. Replicas of the train crash are recreated in a Brazil theme park.

(The original name of the station Gare de l’Ouest is visible on the outside of the building in the above picture.)

Forty years ago today, the Apollo 11 crew, who would become the first humans on the moon, lifted of from the Kennedy Space Center at 9:32 a.m. local time. On July 16th 1969, three astronauts, Mission Commander Neil Armstrong, Command Module Pilot Michael Collins, and Lunar Module Pilot Edwin ‘Buzz’ Aldrin embarked on a mission that changed the course of history.

The most memorable photo of the day was taken by Gary Winogrand. Called ‘Moon Shot’, the second photo above was not the picture of the Saturn V Apollo Rocket lifting off, but of the crowd looking at the lift off. Like Cartier-Bresson before him, Winogrand captured eyes (or in this case cameras) that saw history. At the centre of the picture, the woman who pointed her lens at Winogrand, facing the opposite direction from the lift-off, added an interesting commentary on the gender-roles of the day, especially in the male-dominated science sector.

Matthew Zimmermann’s above photo was the most iconic image of the event, but several versions of the scene existed, including those by Elliot Erwitt and Gary Winogrand.

September 9, 1954. During a publicity shot for The Seven Year Itch, Marilyn Monroe stepped onto a New York subway grille. Like that of Botticelli’s Venus rising from the ocean, Marilyn’s pose is both virginal and seductive. The undulating skirt, floating around the figure, emphasizes the dual seduction of movie star and spectator: Marilyn is seduced by the camera, and in the same moment, the photographer and spectators are seduced by her beauty.

In the actual movie, Monroe’s dress didn’t fly up quite as high; the scene, with Tom Ewell admiring his dream girl’s pleasure at a blast of air through the subway grate (below), was originally shot near Grand Central Terminal, then reshot on a soundstage.

Designed by the 20th Century Fox costume designer, William Travilla, the dress is a prop as well as a symbol. Light as butterfly’s wings, it expresses a lightness of being that was tragically absent in the drama of her personal life. The above scene infuriated her husband, Joe DiMaggio, who felt it was exhibitionist, who promptly divorced Monroe. Only moderately successful in Hollywood, Monroe later married playwright Arthur Miller, her third husband. After many personal crises, her suicide in 1962 was nonetheless unexpected and shocking. It contributed to the mythic status that has surrounded her ever since.

After her death, the dress was retained by Travilla. When Travilla died in 1990, his partner Bill Sarris decided to sell the dress for Alzheimer charities, and the dress was valued at $3,000,000.

Under the name ‘Mukti Bahini’ (Liberation Army), they were the important fighters for the Bangladesh Liberation movement in 1971. An effective guerrilla force, it was a symbolic rallying point for the Bengalis, albeit the independence of Bangladesh was secured primarily with the help of the Indian soldiers aiding the liberation movement. (India’s motive was to prevent 1 million refugees emigrating from East Bengal).

On 16 December 1971, the Pakistani army surrendered. It was the end of 9-month long war, but signalled the beginning of the Great Bengali Revenge. It began with the killing of Monaem Khan, a loyalist, anti-Bengali and ex-governor of East Pakistan in the capital Dacca. What happened next on December 18th was carefully recorded above.

Three iconic photos show Mukti Bahiti extracting revenge on the people who sided with Pakistan during the independence movement. After torturing them for hours, they bayoneted and executed these four men, who were suspected of collaborating with Pakistani militiamen who had been accused of murder, rape and looting. The last picture shows a relative of one of these four men being stomped to death by Mukti Bahini.

The pictures were taken by two photographers Horst Faas and Michael Laurent of AP who shared the 1972 Pulitzer for the photos. The bayonetting photo became the iconic image of the East Bengal War along with Rashid Talukder’s photo of a mutilated head.