https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Boy_Standing_by_the_Crematory
This one. The cost of any war summarized in one picture.
It’s a pity that my app only shows the link text to the photograph instead of the image itself, but I’m glad, in some way, that now I am aware of the existence of such an image of loss. It’s pure loss.
Margaret Hamilton standing next to listings of the software that she and her MIT team produced for the Apollo Project.
I love her, and the code she used is adorable:
“LOL Memory” (Core Rope): The code was literally woven into hardware by women in factories, dubbed “Little Old Lady” memory.
The “Pale Blue Dot” image of earth taken by Voyager 1. Carl Sagan pushed to have Voyager take a parting shot before they turned off the camera. The earth is about one pixel in size.
The Socialist Fraternal Kiss
Because it’s a nice innocent photo of a man walking with nobody on his left side.
Called “Earthrise”, taken during the Apollo 8 mission in December 1968. Always tried to imagine what it was like to have had that view IRL.
This is the hubble Deep Field and is part of a series of deep field images. It was taken by directing the hubble telescope on a tiny dark spot of space. Every single light in this image is a galaxy, many of them as large or larger than our own. It truly shows the immensity of our universe and shows how insignifcant all our problems really are in the grand scheme of things.
The first photo of a black hole is the most historically significant “first photo of x” that happened in my life time and that I actually understood its historical significance when it came out. So I’d say that’s probably my favourite.
Not a photo.
It’s the output of an AI model trained on simulations of black holes being asked to fill in the gaps from sparse observations.
Someone: takes a selfie with their phone under low lighting conditions
You: "not a photo, it’s the output of an algorithm taking the luminosity from an array of light detectors, giving information of the colour and modifying it according to lighting conditions, and then using specific software to sharpen the original capture*
Nah, the hivemind is being cringe as shit rn.
Recreating an image with Ai is not the same even remotely from capturing raw data directly from a digital sensor and cranking the exposure up.
The Ai is approximating what it sees, digital sensors are not, they don’t approximate anything. It’s either there or they don’t see it.
objective and subjective
The self-immolation of Thich Quang Duc never fails to amaze me. It’s just unreal.
And Antonio Turok’s photograph of the 1991 total eclipse of the sun in Chiapas, Mexico. This one because even when I know what an eclipse is and how does it happen, there’s a moment in my head when I think “What if it never ends? What if everything stays like this forever?” I see that instant of terror in this photo.
First time I’m seeing the second one, that’s amazing, thanks for sharing.
Believe me, that photograph can’t be unseen, it’s like the Sun itself is watching you, mad at you. Sorry I couldn’t find something of better quality to upload.
OP’s photo is my favorite, so I will have to mention my second favorite (though calling it a “favorite” feels off).
This photo was taken in 2003 in Iraq. This man is comforting his son. They are being held in an American camp. IIRC to this day we don’t know what happened to these two.
I think if I had to explain the last 25 years to a time-traveler, this would be the one photo I would choose.
Neocons have been dehumanising Arabs for a very long time.
US Liberals are still doing it to this day. One of their heroes, Obama, dropped an average of 80 bombs per day on the ME and North Africa.
After winning the Nobel peace prize, he dropped an average of 30k bombs / year (80 per day) during his presidency, mostly on Muslim countries, 2, 3. In 2016 alone, dropped 26,171 bombs in the Middle East and North Africa, up 3000 from the previous year. The countries bombed include Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, and Somalia.
I like pictures with bright colors in them.
To me that’s a sign towards a bright present and future.All those war, hunger and oppression photos just depress me.
It is hard to pick one, but this photo has always stuck with me. That is a picture from the Dust Bowl during the Great Depression.
The terror of war.
Nobody wins in war, and I hate how angry this photo makes me feel.
Nobody wins in war
The Vietnamese won, as a matter of fact, and liberated themselves from colonialism as a consequence
True, and admirable. But the cost of winning, even if losing isn’t an option, is still loss.
So many people lost.
Yeah but I’d shift the phrasing from “nobody wins from war” to “carpet bombing of civilians by an imperialist power is evil”
First moon landing. It shows what we are capable of
President Taft riding a water buffalo. Always gives me a chuckle.
