Powerful photos *warning: sensitive subjects*

[Corry]

I was on another forum (not a photo forum) and there was a discussion about Anne Frank's birthday, which led to a discussion about the holocaust.

Someone posted a picture from during the holocaust that stopped me dead in my tracks, and affected me in a very strong way. I cannot believe the power in this photo.

This is the picture (don't click if you are overly sensitive about such things)

holocaust picture (photographer unknown to me, let me know if you know who took it)

It got me thinking about some things. I once said that, as a photographer, I would love to have the chance to take a picture that evoked a great deal of emotion. However...I don't think I could have handled being the photographer that took this picture. I think I'd have been a tormented soul for the rest of my life.

What are your thoughts on powerful pictures such as this? What makes a picture so powerful? Are there any pictures that are now burned into your memory, like this one is for me? If you post examples, remember to post them as links and not as pictures.

 

[The_Traveler]

Almost surely done by the remarkably compulsive record-keepers of the Third Reich. They were successfully indicted by their own records on the post-way period.

If this picture bothers you viscerally, you should not take any opportunity to visit the concentration camps memorials.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/images/holocaust00_1.jpg

 

[LaFoto]

If you ever get the chance to go to Amsterdam, make sure you visit the Anne Frank House there, but you need to warp yourself and allow for at least an hour on your own after you have been in there.
It is unbelievable and unbelievably horrible that there were people (my own! :shock: ) that wasted the lives of so many hopeful, intelligent, loving, young, middle-aged, old, male, female, other people. Who on earth did they think they were!?

Well, yes, my people, "compulsive record-keepers" who they were, Lew is quite right here, produced metres and metres of footage of terrible film material and also photos of this kind. They should warn us never to let anything of this kind happen again.

The photo that had the most impact on me ever is that of the 9-year-old naked girl running from the napalm attack in Vietnam back then. No need to search for the link. Everyone knows THAT photo, I assume.

 

[Mike_E]

 

[GoM]

Interesting side note #1 - that little vietnamese girl is now a celeb of sorts in Canada for philanthropic causes

Interesting side note #2 - http://stateoftheart.popphoto.com/blog/2007/06/nick_ut_exactly.html

 

[The_Traveler]

Somewhere in the archives of the US Army, never released, is a picture taken in a village near Bien Hoa, VN. We had been going to one of these villages on a routine basis, giving healthcare, etc. and the local VC thought they were cooperating too much so the night before we got there, they VC came into the village and hanged the families and officials of the village - with wire from rafters in the houses - and made sure the rest of the village didn't take them down before we got there.

One of the medics took some pictures but they were confiscated by the command.

Neither side is 'the good guys' totally.
Everybody has something they should be ashamed of.

 

[Tangerini]

I also can not imagine being the photographer in this case, but then to be involved in any way to the horrendous happenings of the time is completely beyond my comprehension.

Neither side is 'the good guys' totally.
Everybody has something they should be ashamed of.

This makes me think of a line from All Quiet on the Western Front:
"... But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony-Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?"

 

[Peniole]

It's still happening now, just the journalists are either shot, or embeded and not allowed to shoot this or that.

 

[Nein-reis]

It is a powerful shot, and the things that happened in that time were horrible, but events just as horrible (maybe not in the same quanity) are still happening today. Take a look into "Conflict Diamonds" or just about everything in parts of Africa.

 

[Corry]

Almost surely done by the remarkably compulsive record-keepers of the Third Reich. They were successfully indicted by their own records on the post-way period.

If this picture bothers you viscerally, you should not take any opportunity to visit the concentration camps memorials.
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/images/holocaust00_1.jpg

I didn't say it BOTHERED me exactly. I said it affected me very strongly....it filled me with emotion. That is not necessarily a bad thing. I know it would be difficult to do, but visiting such memorials would be an amazing experience.


And guys, lets try and keep the conversation on the photographs, what makes a photo powerful, ect.

 

[Corry]

If you ever get the chance to go to Amsterdam, make sure you visit the Anne Frank House there, but you need to warp yourself and allow for at least an hour on your own after you have been in there.
It is unbelievable and unbelievably horrible that there were people (my own! :shock: ) that wasted the lives of so many hopeful, intelligent, loving, young, middle-aged, old, male, female, other people. Who on earth did they think they were!?

Well, yes, my people, "compulsive record-keepers" who they were, Lew is quite right here, produced metres and metres of footage of terrible film material and also photos of this kind. They should warn us never to let anything of this kind happen again.

The photo that had the most impact on me ever is that of the 9-year-old naked girl running from the napalm attack in Vietnam back then. No need to search for the link. Everyone knows THAT photo, I assume.

I actually had not seen that photo before. And yes, it is very powerful.

It seems it is most often the bad things that become such powerful images....

...can anyone think of a GOOD image that might be comparable?

 

[Iron Flatline]

Not a response to Corry, just another horrible image added to this thread:

Child cries after parents shot dead

Theoretically it doesn't matter what conflict, this is happening all over the world, throughout history.

Theoretically, anyway...

 

[Peanuts]

I shall quickly research this in a minute - but something tells me this was actually not an image from the holocaust but actually Siberia... or the USSR? I shall be back in a moment.

But yes, a very poweful image.

 

[Iron Flatline]

...can anyone think of a GOOD image that might be comparable?

Kiss on VJ Day

 

[deanimator]

Not had enough?
This is another of the most famous images from Vietnam

http://www.cs.brown.edu/courses/cs024/images/canon/06.jpg