Migrant Madonna (Dorothea Lange, 1936)
It all started with a conversation with someone much younger than me (and face it, most people are). She showed me a photo she loved, a sweet image that reminded me of Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Madonna. When I pointed that out, she admitted never having heard of her before, but then immediately recognized the famous photograph when I showed it to her with a quick Google search. And this gave me pause to reflect. Iconic images may resonate onward through the generations, but the people who made them? Not so much. I’m a little saddened by that.
Truth is, I can only think of three photographs that can claim true iconic status in the American canon: the Migrant Madonna, most certainly; Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima by Joe Rosenthal, and Earthrise, taken from the Apollo 8 capsule on its way to the moon. You may have one or two on your own list, too (I sometimes think of Ansel Adam’s Moonrise photo as iconic, but probably just among us photographers). But these three posses an undeniable universality.
Raising The Flag On Iwo Jima (Joe Rosenthal, 1945)
I can’t help but think that when a photograph achieves this level of iconic status, the emotional punch — and the photographer’s own story — gets lost somewhere along the line. It’s the iconography of a commemorative postage stamp, perhaps, or an inspirational meme, but not human triumph and tragedy, and that’s what those photographers saw and shared with us.
Earthrise (William Anders on the Apollo 8 mission, 1968)