20 Most Powerful Photographs Ever Taken

This shocking image shows South Vietnamese police chief Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing Vietcong member Nguyen Van Lem in the street. Although the photo has become synonymous with the horrors or war, the photographer, Eddie Adams, said he felt sorry for Nguyen Ngọc Loan as he felt the image ruined his life and the life of his family.

Perhaps the most heartbreaking image ever taken, Kevin Carter’s picture of a starving girl in Sudan, taken in 1993, sparked much controversy. Carter would commit suicide a year after taking the photo, at the age of 33. It is unknown if the girl in the image survived.

U.S. Army troops wade ashore during the D-Day Normandy landings on June 6, 1944.

World Press Photo of the Year: 1994 James Nachtwey, USA, Magnum Photos for Time. Rwanda, June 1994. Hutu man mutilated by the Hutu ‘Interahamwe’ militia, who suspected him of sympathizing with the Tutsi rebels. About the image Nachtwey says his specialty is dealing with ground level realities with a human dimension. He feels that people need photography to help them understand what’s going on in the world, and believes that pictures can have a great influence on shaping public opinion and mobilizing protest.

And of course the afghan girl, picture shot by National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry. Sharbat Gula was one of the students in an informal school within the refugee camp; McCurry, rarely given the opportunity to photograph Afghan women, seized the opportunity and captured her image. She was approximately 12 years old at the time. She made it on the cover of National Geographic next year, and her identity was discovered in 1992.

A North Korean man waves his hand as a South Korean relative weeps, following a luncheon meeting during inter-Korean temporary family reunions at Mount Kumgang resort October 31, 2010. Four hundred and thirty-six South Koreans were allowed to spend three days in North Korea to meet their 97 North Korean relatives, whom they had been separated from since the 1950-53 war.Photo: Kim Ho-Young / Reuters

The iconic photo of Tank Man, the unknown rebel who stood in front of a column of Chinese tanks in an act of defiance following the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.Photo by Jeff Widener / AP

A mother comforts her son in Concord, Alabama, near his house which was completely destroyed by a tornado in April of 2011.Photo by Jeff Roberts / AP

The falling man’ is one of the simplest and most horrifying images from 9/11. His identity has never been confirmed.

Harold Whittles hears for the first time ever after a doctor places an earpiece in his left ear.Photo by Jack Bradley

“Wait For Me Daddy,” by Claude P. Dettloff, October 1, 1940: A line of soldiers march in British Columbia on their way to a waiting train as five-year-old Whitey Bernard tugs away from his mother’s hand to reach out for his father. (H/t Jodi P)

“La Jeune Fille a la Fleur,” a photograph by Marc Riboud, shows the young pacifist Jane Rose Kasmir planting a flower on the bayonets of guards at the Pentagon during a protest against the Vietnam War on October 21, 1967. The photograph would eventually become the symbol of the flower power movement.

A French civilian cries in despair as Nazis occupy Paris during World War II.

A firefighter gives water to a koala during the devastating Black Saturday bushfires that burned across Victoria, Australia, in 2009.Photo by Mark Pardew

Australian Scott Jones kisses his Canadian girlfriend Alex Thomas after she was knocked to the ground by a police officer’s riot shield in Vancouver, British Columbia. Canadians rioted after the Vancouver Canucks lost the Stanley Cup to the Boston Bruins.Photo by Rich Lam / Getty Images

A Russian war veteran kneels beside the tank he spent the war in, now a monument.

A photo taken by astronaut William Anders during the Apollo 8 mission in 1968.

Child Soldiers.Photo by Michael Lewis

A 10 years old boy smoking at Dhaka Railway Station.Photo by Nasif Imtiaz

Scenes from the ebola crisis.Photo by Daniel Berehulak