I've also tried, despite the fact that photographs of disasters tend to be desperately compelling, to balance my choices. But I've put a couple in spoilers, as they are incredibly disturbing. You may not want to view them.
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Russell Lee, c 1940, Oklahoma
I love the flushed faces, the self-consciousness, the awkwardly expressed emotions. We all want love to be seamless and perfect, but I think we should celebrate its imperfections, its often stumbling nature.
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Anonymous, 1943, Warsaw
So I break my own rule almost straight away. The iconic picture of Jews being rounded up for the death camps after the Warsaw uprising. It's usually the boy who catches your eye, but the little girl on the left reminds me of my daughter.
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Mario Giacomelli, c 1962-3, Rome
Even the priests, it seems, caught the spirit of Italy in the sixties.
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John Sturrock, 1984, Wath
Wath is a few minutes' drive from here. Like many villages in South Yorkshire it had a strong mining heritage. When the confrontation between the miners and the Conservative government came in 1984, the strength of the miners' wives in supporting the year long strike, organising food kitchens, and holding things together captured everyone's imagination. But the strike was lost; coal had been stockpiled, and the miners couldn't hold out. The only thing the union got wrong was how many pits would close; they vastly underestimated, and the British coal industry died on its feet. But this photo conveys the spirit of those people and those times, as they prepare a Christmas feast.
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Mike Sargent, 1986, Washington
Much as I disliked Reagan's policies, I think this picture conveys something of the spirit of the man, and you can see why he was so engaging for many people.
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Kevin Carter, 1993, Sudan
I can barely look at this image. I don't think it needs commenting on, save to say that the boy did not die, as he was within reach of an aid station, despite criticism heaped on Carter for photographing when he could be saving. Carter won a Pulitzer for this, but committed suicide three months later. Not the first or last press photographer to be shattered by the things he witnessed.
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Annie Liebowitz, 1994, Sarajevo
As Liebowitz was driven through Sarajevo, a mortar shell struck a teenage boy on a bike in front of her, blowing a hole in his back. She and her driver took him to hospital, but he died on the way. The almost abstract grace of the photo makes it even more devastating.
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Carol Guzy, 1999, Kukes, Albania
Europe pissed on its own credibility, dithering while ethnic cleansing killed thousands in the Balkans. Here, a happier image of refugee children, safe in the mountains of Albania.
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Tom Stoddart, 1998, Sudan
Sudan again. What an appalling country. Here a well-dressed and well-fed Sudanese man steals a bag of maize from a starving child. It needs seeing in the context of the Islamic/animist conflict that has devastated Sudan, and in which the black Southern Sudanese have been treated like dirt by the Islamic majority population. There is no cultural relativism here. It is just genocide.
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Jonas Bendiksen, 2000, Russia
The second stage of a Soyuz rocket has crashed to earth in the Altai region. Two men perch atop the rocket, looking to salvage the high quality metal for scrap, while white butterflies fill the air around them.
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Michael Appleton, Sep 4 2005, New Orleans
A week after Katrina, and the failure of the flood defences, fires still burn across the abandoned city.
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I think a great photograph can be a hundred times more compelling than film. You build a story in your mind, rather than having it spoonfed to you. I have some superb photographers among my friends on this site. I hope you find something of interest in this selection. I did try to limit myself to ten, but couldn't quite achieve it!
Love to all
L x
I don't know if I've ever mentioned this, but my mother was a holocaust survivor. While her parents and brother were exterminated, she survived and went on to live to age 91. Obviously she brought me into the world, which in turn produced my children and grandchildren. I'd like to think that all of us have contributed something positive to the world and will continue to do so.
That's quite a legacy.
While I became less and less religious, I realized that she's a prime example of someone who was greatly helped by her belief in God. I doubt that I could have sustained those beliefs considering what happened in her life. On the contrary, I'd probably curse God and abandon any faith I may have had in Him after these tragedies. As it is, when someone brings up their belief in a higher power, I bring up the question of how a higher power could allow something like the Holocaust to happen. That goes for things like Aids, Katrina, The Sudan, etc.
What urks me to no end is when people use the all encompassing catch phraise of, "God works in mysterious ways". To me hearing that is like fingernails scraping a chalk board.