【时代周刊 20161117】一百张最有影响力的照片 序言

满仓

【中文标题】一百张最有影响力的照片 序言
【原文标题】Most Influential Photos
【登载媒体】时代周刊
【原文作者】Ben Goldberger
【原文链接】http://100photos.time.com/photos/harold-edgerton-milk-drop

我们打算寻找那些改变了世界的照片。一路走下来，我们发现了照片背后那些令人难以置信的故事。



这个项目开始于一个似乎颇为简单的想法：列出100张最有影响力的照片。如果一张照片代表了某件重要的事情，我们就会考虑把它包括进去。这个简单的标准衍生出无数的决策依据。尽管照片相比于绘画来说，还是一个非常年轻的记录媒介——第一张照片被普遍认为出现在1826年——但是这项技术的飞速发展意味着，如今每一天人们所拍摄的照片数量，都会超过全世界画廊和博物馆中所有画布数量的总和。仅在2016年就产生了数千亿张照片。

怎么才能在浩如烟海的素材中缩小寻找范围？首先要找专家。我们联系了图书馆长、历史学家和全世界的图片编辑，寻求他们的建议。他们的提名把范围大大缩小，之后我们又请《时代周刊》的记者和编辑帮忙筛选。这意味着与摄影师、拍摄对象、他们的朋友、家人——无论线索把我们引到哪里——进行数千次的面谈。过程很痛苦，但我们发现的那些令人难以置信的故事让我们很自豪地发布出来。

并没有一个固定的模式来拍摄一张有影响力的照片。以影响力作为标准，必然会漏掉一些标志性的照片和伟大的摄影师。全世界的伟大摄影师名单中必然会包括安塞尔•亚当斯，但是亚当斯拍摄的约塞米蒂国家公园的照片——尽管极其壮观——在影响力上无法与卡雷顿•沃特金斯的作品相比，因为后者最终让这个国家公园得以建立起来。有些照片进入了这个列表，因为他们是同类摄影作品的先驱，还有一些是因为它们改变了我们的思维方式，另一些直接改变了我们的生活方式。100张照片的共同点在于它们都是人类经历的转折点。

摄影诞生于一项伟大的技术创新，而新的技术还在不断推动它的发展，所以我们对于照片影响力的定义也随着拍摄与欣赏的发展而有所变化。全世界第一次看到亚伯拉罕•赞普鲁德所拍摄的约翰•F•肯尼迪被刺杀的影像，并不是动态图像，而是刊登在《生活》杂志上的一系列静态图片。在电视机普及之前，《生活》杂志上的照片影响了人们对世界的看法。当菲力佩•卡恩在将近20年前拿起手机，给他新出生的女儿拍摄了一张照片的时候，他或许在内心认为，这个发明必将改变世界。

如今，每一个人都是摄影师、出版商和消费者。大部分情况下，这是件好事。我们与摄影之间形成了更加个人化、更加紧密的关系。罗伯特•卡帕拍摄的那张二战盟军登陆照片，用了几天时间，转了若干次飞机才与全世界见面。在今天社交媒体充满了来自全世界各个角落的照片的环境中，似乎是令人难以接受的。但是，数字化革命让定义一张照片影响力的过程充满了挑战。点赞和转发量是客观的依据，但这是否足够？未经传统方式发布的照片怎么办？除非你是做病毒营销工作的，否则你绝对不会欣赏艾伦•德詹妮斯在2014年奥斯卡颁奖典礼上拍摄的那张不讲究取景、满是明星脸的自拍照。但是这张社交媒体上的照片成为了历史上浏览量最高的图片。

在编辑这个列表的过程中，我们发现了一个重要的影响力因素一直贯穿着将近两个世纪的摄影史：摄影师必须身处现场。最优秀的摄影作品是对现场的见证，一种向全世界展现单一视角的方式。亚历山大•加德纳在1862年用马车把暗房拖到安提纳姆战场；大卫•加顿菲尔德在2013年从朝鲜直接把照片上传到Instagram，都印证了这一点。

震惊世界的照片“索马里的饥荒”拍摄者詹姆斯•纳赫特韦，以及很多很多摄影师，都把毕生时间投入在拍摄现场。正如他所说：“你不停地拍摄，不停地发布，这样会营造一种改变即将发生的气氛。我总是待在拍摄现场。”



原文：

Most Influential Photos

We set out to find images that changed the world. Along the way, we unearthed incredible stories of how they were made

We began this project with what seemed like a straightforward idea: assemble a list of the 100 most influential photographs ever taken. If a picture led to something important, it would be considered for inclusion. From that simple concept flowed countless decisions. Although photography is a much younger medium than painting–the first photo is widely considered to date from 1826–the astonishing technological advances since its beginning mean that there are now far more pictures taken on any given day than there are canvases in all the world’s galleries and museums. In 2016 alone, hundreds of billions of images were made.

How do you narrow a pool that large? You start by calling in the experts. We reached out to curators, historians and photo editors around the world for suggestions. Their thoughtful nominations whittled the field, and then we asked TIME reporters and editors to see whether those held up to scrutiny. That meant conducting thousands of interviews with the photographers, picture subjects, their friends, family members and others–anywhere the rabbit holes led. It was an exhaustive process that unearthed some incredible stories that we are proud to tell for the first time. You’ll find a selection in the pages ahead. The complete collection can be found in TIME’s new book, 100 Photographs: The Most Influential Images of All Time, as well as on our multimedia site time.com/100photos, where you can view original documentary films about key works.

There is no formula that makes a picture influential, and a list about influence necessarily leaves off its fair share of iconic pictures and important photographers. A survey class in great photographers would surely include Ansel Adams. And yet no single one of the pictures Adams took inside Yosemite–majestic as they are–could rival in influence Carleton Watkins’ work, which led to the creation of the park. Some images are on our list because they were the first of their kind, others because they shaped the way we think. And some made the cut because they directly changed the way we live. What all 100 share is that they are turning points in our human experience.

Photography was born of a great innovation and is constantly reshaped by new ones. So it is fitting that our definition of an influential photo changes along with the ways pictures are taken and seen. The world first saw Abraham Zapruder’s haunting images of John F. Kennedy’s assassination not as a moving picture but as a series of frame-by-frame stills published in LIFE magazine. Before televisions were in every home, the photos that ran in LIFE influenced how a lot of people understood their world. When Philippe Kahn rigged his cell phone to take a picture of his newborn daughter nearly 20 years ago, he could scarcely imagine that his invention would change the world.

Now everyone is a photographer, a publisher and a consumer. This has largely been to the good. Our connection with photography is more personal and immediate than ever–that it took several days and multiple flights for Robert Capa’s pictures of the D-Day landings to see the light of day seems impossible when today our social-media feeds are bursting with images from every corner of the globe. But the digital revolution has made quantifying influence a particular challenge. Likes and shares are a very real metric, but are they enough? And what of a picture that was never published in a traditional way? Unless you are in viral marketing, there is nothing to admire in the poorly framed, celebrity-packed selfie organized by Ellen DeGeneres at the Oscars in 2014. Yet the photo’s astounding reach through social media makes it one of the most seen images of all time.

In the process of putting together this list, we noticed that one aspect of influence has largely remained constant throughout photography’s nearly two centuries: the photographer has to be there. The best photography is a form of bearing witness, a way of bringing a single vision to the larger world. That was as true for Alexander Gardner when he took his horse-pulled darkroom to the Battle of Antietam in 1862 as it was for David Guttenfelder when he became the first professional photographer to post directly to Instagram from inside North Korea in 2013.

James Nachtwey–the photographer who made the deeply moving image Famine in Somalia, among many, many others–has dedicated his life to being there. As he puts it, “You keep on going, keep on sending the pictures, because they can create an atmosphere where change is possible. I always hang on to that.”

BLWY