Most Famous Photos of All Time

A picture can say so many words, I never knew before writing and compiling this post. This post has truly been an enthralling experience for me.

Millions of photographs are taken each day and hundreds and thousands of portraits are made but very few carry the true sense of depth in them. Some photos are not just photos but they may be depiction of certain event of may carry a revolutionary idea.

Here I have compiled some of the most famous photos and portraits that have gained immense international recognition. I may have missed some but according to me they are the 10 most famous photos.

Mona Lisa

Mona Lisa is a 16th century portrait painted in oil on a poplar panel by Leonardo da Vinci. The work is owned by the Government of France and is on the wall in the Louvre in Paris, France.

Che Guevara

This is a well known photo of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara. It was taken on March 5, 1960, in Havana, Cuba, at a memorial service for victims of the La Coubre explosion. The photo was not published internationally until seven years later.

Afghan Girl

The afghan girl, picture shot by National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry. He, rarely given the opportunity to photograph Afghan women, seized the opportunity and captured her image. She was approximately 12 years old at the time.

Omayra Sanchez

Omayra Sánchez was one of the 25,000 victims of the Nevado del Ruiz (Colombia) volcano which erupted in 1985. The 13-year old had been trapped in water and concrete for 3 days. The picture was taken shortly before she died. It caused controversy due to the photographer’s work.

Portrait of Winston Churchill

This photograph was taken by Yousuf Karsh, a Canadian photographer. It is claimed to be the most reproduced photographic portrait in history.

Kosovo refugees 

The photo by carol guzy showing how a 2 year old Kosovar refugee, is passed through a barbed wire fence into the hands of grandparents at a camp run by United Arab Emirates in Kukes, Albania.

Sudan Refugee Camp

The photo is the “Pulitzer Prize” winning photo taken in 1994 during the Sudan Famine. The picture depicts stricken child crawling towards a United Nations food camp, located a kilometer away.

Segregated Water Fountains

Picture of segregated water fountains in North Carolina taken by Elliott Erwitt.

Bliss

Bliss is the name of a photograph of a landscape in Napa County, California, east of Sonoma Valley. It contains rolling green hills and a blue sky with stratocumulus and cirrus clouds. The image is used as the default computer wallpaper for the “Luna” theme in Windows XP.

Planting of the American flag at Iwo Jima

Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima is a historic photograph taken on February 23, 1945, by Joe Rosenthal. It depicts five United States Marines and a U.S. Navy corpsman raising the flag of the United States atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II