I had not seen either the one with the woman and the cat and the "legs" for the musical Cats, nor the Kurt Cobain memorial cover of Rolling Stone. I thought the Tienamen Square photo was interesting because there are FOUR different photographers who shot basically the SAME image...they are virtually interchangeable images.
"Iconic" photos....hmmm...I think this is a poor word for some of these images, because some of these images simply have not achieved the status of "iconic". The shot of Muhammed Ali standing over Sonny Liston in 1965 is truly "iconic"...THAT PICTURE has achieved iconic status--around the entire world. Harry Benson's photo of the Beatles goofing around in their hotel room--heck, I saw that image as a boy, 40-some years ago, and have seen it many,many,many times over.McCurdy's "Afghan girl" was all the rage in the 1990's, and is very famous.
But Mary Ellen Mark's shot of a circus master encircled by an elephant's trunk?? NEVER had seen it until today. Brent Stirton with the locals carrying the dead gorilla...never had seen it.
The funny thing about Neil Lifer's photo of ALi and Liston is that he was just a young kid when he made it, and all of the older, more-experienced photographers, the "old hands" are on the OTHER side of the ring...As I recall from an interview he did about that photo, they forced him into a substandard position before the fight started, and he set up there. Then, when the knockdown occurred, all the "old hands" were on the wrong side of the action and Lifer got the BEST shot!!!! Next time you see this shot up close, take a good look at the faces of the photographers BEHIND Ali--their expressions are priceless!!!