Best picture you ever saw... that you didnt make of course

[mysteryscribe]

I wrote a novel about the best picture I ever saw.... It is a dark novel and it was a dark picture.

How about you what is the best picture you ever saw.. one that haunts you and for some reason you can't fully expain to others.

[ShelleySnapz]

I dont think I have any.....that I didnt take myself...mine I think has to be of my fathers hand...that one is a real emotional shot for me...I cant get over it

[LaFoto]

Whether it is the BEST I ever saw, I can't tell, but it is definitely one that has dug itself deeply into my memory. So much so that I am planning to ask my dad where he stored his very old (like from 1962-65) collected "Leica"-magazines, so I can look at it again. The picture is as old (or older) and is in one of the magazines. It was taken in India and is the portrait of a very beautiful girl with the biggest eyes and the most serious look.
Mansi on here takes photos like that and Mansi was not even planned - her parents might have been children even - at the time that photo was taken!

[hobbes28]

Mine for the moment is "Elephant with Exploding Dust" by Nick Brandt. He did a whole series for a magazine called Lenswork from an African Safari and they are all awe inspiring.

Here's a webpage with that image on it in particular. You could probably find the rest of them online as well. Great stuff...the kind that makes me dream as a photographer.

*edit - you can see a lot of his work on that same site if you click on Artists, then Nick Brandt.

**edit again - www.nickbrandt.com - Amazing...

[clarinetJWD]

Anything on Ashes and Snow. Anything.

[JohnMF]

One that always sticks in my mind is the Photograph of the Afganistan Girl. I think it was taken during the war between Afganistan and Russia.

I saw a documentary on it not so long ago where the photographer traveled back to afganistan to try and trace her some twenty years later.

Here is a link to the picture

[Alexandra]

Quote: Originally Posted by JohnMF

One that always sticks in my mind is the Photograph of the Afganistan Girl. I think it was taken during the war between Afganistan and Russia.

I saw a documentary on it not so long ago where the photographer traveled back to afganistan to try and trace her some twenty years later.

Here is a link to the picture

I saw that documentary too. amazing story. and amazing picture... one of my favorites too, i think.

As to my very very favorite, i can hardly pick. I don't have a clear preference for any style in particular, so i guess i could make a very long list...
i'll be back later with some links

[darin3200]

I can't choose the best picture I've seen, there are too many factors and ways of judging an image. As a whole, I think the Ron Haviv's Blood and Honey, Christopher Morris's Chechen War, and James Nachtwey's "Inferno" are some of the best work I've seen.

[terri]

I can't pick an absolute favorite. Too many speak to me for so many reasons.

I can settle for saying: all the photographs I've come across of my ancestors. I love looking at their faces - sometimes so lined with worry and hardship, and sometimes so carefree - and thinking about the times they lived in.

I wonder what they were doing an hour before getting their pictures made, and an hour after. I like to think about all the oddities of fate and chance that let me come from them, down the line.

[clarinetJWD]

Quote: Originally Posted by JohnMF

One that always sticks in my mind is the Photograph of the Afganistan Girl. I think it was taken during the war between Afganistan and Russia.

I saw a documentary on it not so long ago where the photographer traveled back to afganistan to try and trace her some twenty years later.

Here is a link to the picture

I saw it as well. THat is a fantastic photo

[mysteryscribe]

Since I started this I should tell you mine.

In 1966 I was in a little country in asia. I saw a picture in the stars and stripes that changed the way I looked at things. It is almost impossible to tell and have it seem important to anyone else. That was part of the question if you remember. I picture that haunts you and you can fully explain why.

It was a Viet Cong soldier hanging in the barbed wire, lit by an artilery shell of white phosphorous. That stuff takes off like fire works. The body was hanging in the light and I knew it would have been hanging there the next day. Some army or marine grunt with a camera made that picture. No doubt he put down the camera and traded if for an m16 as the night wore on. It touched me on so many levels you just can't imagine.

So that's the one that haunts me.. and I can not adaquately explain it to this day.

[craig]

As much as I hated Photo History I have to say that to this day I am inspired and haunted by the work of the old masters. To narrow it down I would say Alfred Stieglitz "Flat Iron Building" 1903. I used to spend a lot of time near the Flat Iron building. I have been there during snowstorms when basically no one else was near. Those are some of the times I remember dearly.