Iconic images

Today my newspaper ran the 1957 photo of Elizabeth Eckford attempting simply to go to school in Little Rock, Arkansas:



I looked at the photo for a long time, soaking up the details, wondering especially about the expressions of the two women on the right - fear? curiosity? suspicion? anger?

And Elizabeth Eckford herself - she looks equally vunerable and courageous. What must she have been thinking during that walk.

Do you think she knew that 50 years later she would be an icon of American history? Do you think that she feels like she is one?

Do you think she is one?

I think this image offers up a very good summary of a specific era - not an event - because the photo is really about so much more than a girl walking to school.

Can you think of other images that so encapsulate an era?

In this comparatively simple portrait, Leibovitz relies on intimacy for effect. Her aim was to immortalise John and Yoko's deep love for one another. But within hours of taking this photograph John Lennon was shot dead. Distributed around the world as a 'Rolling Stone' magazine cover, the photograph was instantly transformed. It became a memorial to Lennon and a symbol of the vulnerability of human passion.