''Life: 100 Photographs that Changed The World'' is a book of photographs, that are believed to have pushed towards a change, accumulated by the editors of ''

Life Life, also known as biota, refers to matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, Structure#Biological, organisation, met ...

'' magazine in 2003.

History

The project began with an online question posted on ''

s website in 2003 and '' The Digital Journalist'': Can

photographs A photograph (also known as a photo, or more generically referred to as an ''image'' or ''picture'') is an image created by light falling on a photosensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic image sensor. The process and pra ...

create the same historical effect as

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

? The question remained on the website for visitors to openly answer to for several weeks. Most responses were in favor of the idea with the exception of a rebuttal from documentary photographer Joshua Haruni who said, "photographs can definitely inspire us, but the written word has the ability to spark the imagination to greater depths than any photograph, whose content is limited to what exists in the frame." ''

'' determined that "a collection of pictures that 'changed the world' is a thing worth contemplating, if only to arrive at some resolution about the influential nature of photography and whether it is limited, vast or in between." Pictures nominated by the public were reviewed by editors who then compiled 100 photographs that they felt portrayed technological photographic achievements, documented historic events and accomplishments or have achieved iconic cultural and, symbolic status. The book was edited by Robert Sullivan and picture editor Barbara Baker Burrows, and published by Time, Inc. Home Entertainment. An updated edition of the book was published August 9, 2011.

Sections

The work is divided into four major chapters and three accompanying subsections. The major quarters are: *The

Arts The arts or creative arts are a vast range of human practices involving creativity, creative expression, storytelling, and cultural participation. The arts encompass diverse and plural modes of thought, deeds, and existence in an extensive ...

(concentrating on photography's evolution throughout the 19th century and its later application to cultural exploitation); *

Society A society () is a group of individuals involved in persistent social interaction or a large social group sharing the same spatial or social territory, typically subject to the same political authority and dominant cultural expectations. ...

(documenting images that captured moments that shifted public acquaintance with political, social, cultural and environmental issues); *

War War is an armed conflict between the armed forces of states, or between governmental forces and armed groups that are organized under a certain command structure and have the capacity to sustain military operations, or between such organi ...

(pivotal moments of conflict and associated violence); and *

Science Science is a systematic discipline that builds and organises knowledge in the form of testable hypotheses and predictions about the universe. Modern science is typically divided into twoor threemajor branches: the natural sciences, which stu ...

and

Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

(capturing technological triumphs, defeats and horrors). The three subsections are: *Photographic Art (early works of artists whose primary medium was photography); *Trick Photography (infamous scams perpetrated through photographs); and *Stop Action (photos that are in fact captures taken from

film A film, also known as a movie or motion picture, is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, emotions, or atmosphere through the use of moving images that are generally, sinc ...

Photographs

Some of the included photos are identified with larger events, such as H.S. Wong's 1937 photograph of a lone child crying at a demolished train station on "Bloody Saturday" as representative of the entire bombing of Shanghai. Other photographs are excerpts from larger historic collections, such as

Roger Fenton Roger Fenton (28 March 1819 – 8 August 1869) was a British photographer, noted as one of the first war photographers. Fenton was born into a Lancashire merchant family. After graduating from London with an arts degree, he became interested i ...

's and Alexander Gardner's respective groundbreaking documentations of the

Crimean War The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont fro ...

and

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

. Margin notes document the circumstantial background of many photographs, as well as instances where the images have been accused of being staged.

Gallery

Some of the photos are depicted below. Only images in the public domain in the US can be displayed here. File:Untitled (point de vue), Niépce 1827 — HRC 2020 (cropped).jpg , ''

View from the Window at Le Gras Acornsoft was the software arm of Acorn Computers, and a major publisher of software for the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron. As well as games, it also produced a large number of educational titles, extra computer languages and business and ut ...

'', 1827 File:Cavalry camp near Balaklava 1855.3a34625r.jpg, ''Cavalry camp near Balaklava'' –

, 1855 File:Roger_Fenton_-_Shadow_of_the_Valley_of_Death.jpg, ''The Valley of the Shadow of Death'' – Siege of Sevastopol, Crimean War, 1855 File:The Horse in Motion.jpg, ''

The Horse in Motion ''The Horse in Motion'' is a series of cabinet cards by Eadweard Muybridge, including six cards that each show a series of six to twelve "automatic electro-photographs" depicting successive phases in the movement of a horse, shot in June 187 ...

'', 1878 File:First medical X-ray by Wilhelm Röntgen of his wife Anna Bertha Ludwig's hand - 18951222.jpg ,

X-ray An X-ray (also known in many languages as Röntgen radiation) is a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength shorter than those of ultraviolet rays and longer than those of gamma rays. Roughly, X-rays have a wavelength ran ...

Wilhelm Röntgen Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (; 27 March 1845 – 10 February 1923), sometimes Transliteration, transliterated as Roentgen ( ), was a German physicist who produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range known as X-rays. As ...

, 1896 File:First flight2.jpg , First successful flight by the

Wright brothers The Wright brothers, Orville Wright (August 19, 1871 – January 30, 1948) and Wilbur Wright (April 16, 1867 – May 30, 1912), were American aviation List of aviation pioneers, pioneers generally credited with inventing, building, and flyin ...

, 1903 File:Woman of Tehuantepec - Tina Modotti, Getty.jpg , '' Woman of Tehuantepec'' by Tina Modotti, 1929 File:Bloody Saturday, Shanghai.jpg, '' Bloody Saturday'' – Battle of Shanghai, 1937 File:Lange-MigrantMother02.jpg, '' Migrant Mother'', 1936 File:Stroop Report - Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 06b.jpg , Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 1943 File:Into the Jaws of Death 23-0455M edit.jpg , ''

Into the Jaws of Death ''Into the Jaws of Death'' is a photograph taken on June 6, 1944, by Robert F. Sargent, a chief photographer's mate in the United States Coast Guard. It depicts soldiers of the U.S. Army's 1st Infantry Division disembarking from an LCVP (land ...

'', 1944 File:Nagasakibomb.jpg , Atomic Cloud Rises Over Nagasaki, 1945 File:Dalí Atomicus (final version).jpg , '' Dalí Atomicus'', 1948 File:Che Guevara - Guerrillero Heroico by Alberto Korda.jpg ,

Che Guevara Ernesto "Che" Guevara (14th May 1928 – 9 October 1967) was an Argentines, Argentine Communist revolution, Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, Guerrilla warfare, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and Military theory, military theorist. A majo ...

, 1960 File:Leap into Freedom.jpeg , East German border guard Konrad Schumann leaping over barbed wire to defect to West Germany, 1961 File:Thích Quảng Đức self-immolation.jpg , Thích Quảng Đức self-immolation, 1963 File:NASA-Apollo8-Dec24-Earthrise.jpg , ''

Earthrise ''Earthrise'' is a photograph of Earth and part of the Moon's surface that was taken from lunar orbit by astronaut William Anders on December 24, 1968, during the Apollo 8 mission. Nature photographer Galen Rowell described it as "the most in ...

'', 1968, by

William Anders William Alison Anders (17 October 1933 – 7 June 2024) was an American United States Air Force (USAF) major general, electrical engineer, nuclear engineer, NASA astronaut, and businessman. In December 1968, he was a member of the crew of ...

File:Buzz Aldrin's bootprint on the Moon, AS11-40-5877 (21472308758).jpg ,

Buzz Aldrin Buzz Aldrin ( ; born Edwin Eugene Aldrin Jr.; January 20, 1930) is an American former astronaut, engineer and fighter pilot. He made three extravehicular activity, spacewalks as pilot of the 1966 Gemini 12 mission, and was the Lunar Module Eag ...

's boot print on the Moon, 1969 File:The Terror of War.jpg , Napalm attack, Vietnam, 1972 File:The Earth seen from Apollo 17.jpg , ''

The Blue Marble ''The Blue Marble'' is a photograph of Earth taken on December 7, 1972, by either Ronald Evans (astronaut), Ron Evans or Harrison Schmitt aboard the Apollo 17 spacecraft on its way to the Moon. Viewed from around from Earth's surface, a crop ...

'', 1972 File:Challenger explosion.jpg , Space Shuttle ''Challenger'' explosion, 1986

References

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External links