Famous photographs you have grown really tired of seeing.

[ripgriffith]

There's a simple solution for those who are tired of seeing iconic pictures: Stop looking. I'd also suggest that if you're tired of iconic pictures and actually do stop looking you'll also stop looking when you're out with a camera. As HCB famously said, "Photographing is nothing. Looking is everything."

The possibility is, particularly among newer photographers, that the more inundated they are by particular images, the more it may influence their personal vision (the operative word here being "inundated").  That said, I introduce my beginning students to the best of the "iconic" photographs (of course I know that is redundant, but it makes my point), so that they may experience what I, at least, consider to be the best of the best... equal parts of Haas and Henri,  Weston and Winogrand.  Best of the best is exactly why these photographs have become iconic.  Almost without exception they are compositional masterpieces (I may need to exclude Winogrand from that comment, but even his works have something to teach).

Just barely tangential: So far as I know, no image in photography begins to approach the level of inundation I experienced on my first visit to Vienna, where the streets are literally paved with Klimt's "The Kiss"... posters, flags, imitation paintings, glasses, cups, saucers, complete dish sets, t-shirts, tablecloths, dresses, neckties, _______ (just fill in the blank and they have done it), and it is almost impossible to escape.

[mezzoduomo]

They thought it amusing to attack you; it isn't about your post, it's all about them.

Is there no end to your wisdom and insight, Isaac?

[Jim Pascoe]

The possibility is, particularly among newer photographers, that the more inundated they are by particular images, the more it may influence their personal vision (the operative word here being "inundated").  That said, I introduce my beginning students to the best of the "iconic" photographs (of course I know that is redundant, but it makes my point), so that they may experience what I, at least, consider to be the best of the best... equal parts of Haas and Henri,  Weston and Winogrand.  Best of the best is exactly why these photographs have become iconic.  Almost without exception they are compositional masterpieces (I may need to exclude Winogrand from that comment, but even his works have something to teach).

Just barely tangential: So far as I know, no image in photography begins to approach the level of inundation I experienced on my first visit to Vienna, where the streets are literally paved with Klimt's "The Kiss"... posters, flags, imitation paintings, glasses, cups, saucers, complete dish sets, t-shirts, tablecloths, dresses, neckties, _______ (just fill in the blank and they have done it), and it is almost impossible to escape.

Rip - you are on a hiding to nothing there I fear.  You cannot control what newer photographers see.  Photographers for as long as photography has been around have been influenced by what has gone before (as I can see you are aware).  And I agree that the important thing is to be exposed to some of the best as well as just the most prolific.  The better photographers will eventually develop their own way of seeing, even if it is influenced by what they have seen before.  My own method as far as possible is Look, See, Photograph.  The looking and seeing part is more personal to me now, but the photographing is undoubtably influenced heavily by what I have seen before.  I suppose even the looking and seeing is part-influenced by what I have enjoyed looking at done by others, but I try hard to see anew.

Perhaps my best reply to this thread then would be to accept that there are some pictures I personally have seen enough of, but accept that they need to be seen often to spark the imagination of an endless new wave of people.

Jim

[Isaac]

They thought it amusing to attack you; it isn't about your post, it's all about them.

Is there no end to your wisdom and insight, Isaac?

Quod erat demonstrandum.

[Gulag]

Don't drink the cool-aid of the ideology spoon-fed to you since your birth. Ask you yourselves this question instead: why did the US corporate media believe this particular image at the time fit the propaganda much better and promote it?

"We feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom." — Slavoj Žižek
 

[Jim Pascoe]

Don't drink the cool-aid of the ideology spoon-fed to you since your birth. Ask you yourselves this question instead: why did the US corporate media believe this particular image at the time fit the propaganda much better and promote it?

"We feel free because we lack the very language to articulate our unfreedom." — Slavoj Žižek
 

There probably is something in what you say.  I am always wary of the powerful effect of images used to support government foreign policy here in the UK.  A bit like the recent huge emphasis on our Remembrance Day (end of WW1).  It is really about remembering those that died in the great war - but it feels to me like the government use it to show solidarity with our armed forces now.  Fair enough you might say - but they have been led into the quagmire that is Afganhistan and Iraq and we are expected to show unstinting support for these ventures because of the suffering of the soldiers.  We talk about the 'heroes' and it eases the suffering of the soldiers and their relatives of those who are killed or maimed (somewhat).

Jim

[stamper]

There probably is something in what you say.  I am always wary of the powerful effect of images used to support government foreign policy here in the UK.  A bit like the recent huge emphasis on our Remembrance Day (end of WW1).  It is really about remembering those that died in the great war - but it feels to me like the government use it to show solidarity with our armed forces now.  Fair enough you might say - but they have been led into the quagmire that is Afganhistan and Iraq and we are expected to show unstinting support for these ventures because of the suffering of the soldiers.  We talk about the 'heroes' and it eases the suffering of the soldiers and their relatives of those who are killed or maimed (somewhat).

Jim

+1

[Isaac]

… and we are expected to show unstinting support for these ventures because of the suffering of the soldiers.

Support for their service; and opposition or support for the ventures as-you-wish.

[ripgriffith]

  A bit like the recent huge emphasis on our Remembrance Day (end of WW1).  It is really about remembering those that died in the great war - but it feels to me like the government use it to show solidarity with our armed forces now.  Fair enough you might say - but they have been led into the quagmire that is Afganhistan and Iraq and we are expected to show unstinting support for these ventures because of the suffering of the soldiers.  We talk about the 'heroes' and it eases the suffering of the soldiers and their relatives of those who are killed or maimed (somewhat).

Jim

Wonderfully said, Jim.  I want to share a quote from the playwright, Paddy Chayefsky, from his film The Americanization of Emily :

"It's not war that's insane, you see. It's the morality of it. It's not greed or ambition that makes wars. It's goodness. Wars are always fought for the best of reasons: for liberation or manifest destiny - always against tyranny and always in the interest of humanity. So far this war, we've managed to butcher some 10,000,000 humans in the interest of humanity. Next war, it seems we'll have to destroy all of man in order to preserve his damn dignity. It's not war that's unnatural to us. It's virtue. As long as valor remains a virtue, we shall have soldiers....

We shall never end wars... by blaming it on ministers and generals or warmongering imperialists or all the other banal bogeys. It's the rest of us who build statues to those generals and name boulevards after those ministers. The rest of us who make heroes of our dead and shrines of our battlefields. We wear our widow's weeds like nuns, and perpetuate war by exalting its sacrifices."

[Gulag]

War has always been the ultimate wealth transfer vehicle that is designed to enrich the ruling elite who own the means of production. Forget politicians because they are just agents. That explains why wars,  such as Vietnam War,  was designed to drag on for years without any victory in sight. War is money and follow the money you can get your questions answered.