If you could have been the photographer...

If you could have been the photographer that captured that iconic image, that moment it time, which picture would it have been and why?

I thought long and hard about this as there are so many, for example Marilyn Monroe and The Seven Year Itch shot, Audrey Hepburn Breakfast at Tiffany's, the many striking images of war, or the iconic portraits of Jim Morrison, James Dean, Marlon Brando and Che Guevara to name just a few.

But for me it has to be the photograph of the striking miner in a police hat facing the police line at Orgreave Pit in 1984. You can view the image here: link The story behind the image is well worth researching if you don't know it.

Why? Well despite where I live I am not a Yorkshireman, I have no connection with the miners, but in 1984 I was 16 and was just becoming politically aware and interested in photography. Yorkshire seemed a long way away from my sleepy Shropshire upbringing, but I still feel the empathy now that the image struck in me back then.

For me, that is the shot I wish I had taken.

It's an interesting question, and one that I found quite difficult to find an answer to. Part of the problem is that I don't really want to have taken somebody else's photo - I want to take mine. Photography is about expressing something of oneself.

However, I think the answer is I would like to have produced a shot like Ansel Adams's image of Mount Williamson. The powerful rocks in the foreground, the majestic mountains and the dark, foreboding sky....superb.

Good choice that John, and I know what you mean about wanting to take your own photos.

It will be interesting to see what else pops up in the thread!

Easy one for me to answer, Marilyn Monroe standing on the subway vent

But you haven't explained why?

I was sent over to West Berlin in 1989 as an on-board courier, hand-delivering some mag tapes on behalf of (I think) BP. It was my first time going to Berlin, and as we flew into Teigel airport, it was customary to circle the city, as we would have otherwise encroached Russian/East German/American airspace, and it was politically-sensitive at that time to do so. Seeing the famous Berlin Wall partitioning the city would have been a photograph in itself, but for me it would have to have been a photo of the first East German meeting his/her Western counterpart on that night, as un-beknown to me, I had arrived in Berlin on the night that the Wall was brought down. I had taken my camera (I think it was an SFX I had at that time), but I was advised to stay in the hotel, as "something" was happening on the streets of the city that night. For me, that would have been my "I was there" moment, captured for posterity.

It's a great question but very difficult to answer, alot of the iconic political photos i thought of i am in all honsety gald i wasnt there!

The photos i can honestly say i wished i had been there taking pictures are more cultural. I am not sure if this picture is iconic enough out side the world of skatboarding, but for me it represents a point in time when skateboarding was transforming into what it is now which would of been exciting to be part of.

But iconic photo i would most like to of taken is Pennie Smiths photo of Paul Simonon smashing his guitar that formed the cover of the clashes London calling - Mainly because i would have loved to have seen the Clash

Gosh that is hard. I think I would plump for something by Nick Brandt's 'On this Earth... A shadow Falls...' series. One day I would love to see the great animals in Africa and his photos are inspirational. It is so hard to pick one but I really like his shot of Elephants in the Amboseli:

link

(I think this links to the right pic)

I also like the fact that he still uses film (in a Pentax 67 as it happens). I think it would just be great to see these spectacles of the animal kingdom, and to be able to capture such wonderful images too would be the icing on the cake

Cheers

O. Winston Link - Hotshot Eastbound. This is a photo that I find remarkable.

I'd like to have been walking by the Pentagon around 9:30am on 11th Sept 2001 so I could snap what really happened.

But then you may not be here now as I assume that you would have refrained from handing over the camera or memory card......

That had crossed my mind

Almost as dangerous as being a war photojournalist and not being embedded ( monitored ) by the prevailing power.

Not bothered about the lens flare, I do wish I had taken this one: link

Just have been some huge dynamic range in that film to be able to boost the shadows like that. He would have been just a black silhouette on the original.

Just stumbled on this one.

Thinking about it I find it very difficult to choose a single photo from what I consider the large list of iconic ones. A lot of them were simply shot by people who were in the right place at the right time and with the right connections to get them published.

An alternate question might be "What event would you like to have been present at where you thought the historical record photos are missing something?".

I'm not sure how iconic it is, but mine would be the one from Shackleton's Endurance expedition where the men are pulling a lifeboat on a sledge: link.

To me it's a curious shot that just had to be taken "Hang on boss, just want a quick photo, nobody would believe this...". That it was taken at all in the predicament they were in, is itself an achievement.