(NEW YORK, NY, NOVEMBER 17, 2016)—Today, Time releases the 100 Most Influential Photos of All Time, a major multi-platform project that explores 100 images that changed the world and shaped the human experience. Time goes behind each image to reveal how and why it changed the course of history at time.com/100photos. The interactive site is a virtual museum of all 100 photographs and includes essays, 20 original short documentary films accompanying key works and never-before-told stories behind the photos.

Time is also publishing a companion hardcover book, 100 Photographs: The Most Influential Images of All Time, featuring a foreword by Geoff Dyer and afterword by David Von Drehle. The book is available for purchase at the Time shop and in bookstores nationwide: http://ti.me/2f22zjW.

The new issue of Time features the project as its cover story and will hit newsstands on Friday, November 18. As a tribute to photography, Time transformed its iconic red border into a graphic version of a camera lens for the cover image. Read more here: http://ti.me/2fzDNs4 See the cover here: http://bit.ly/2f68lRG

In choosing the 100 most influential photos, Time editors reached out to curators, historians and photo editors around the world for suggestions to help whittle the field. Time reporters and editors then conducted thousands of interviews with the photographers, picture subjects, their friends, family members and others.

Time's Kira Pollack, Director of Photography and Visual Enterprise, writes on LightBox, “This project does not look at the influence of photographers within the history of the medium, but rather at how history has been influenced by specific photographs. Sometimes those two points overlap, but mostly, this project is about the unique power that still images have to influence change – some of these pictures can be disturbing in nature but somehow those are also the pictures that are seared onto the back of our brain, affirming their power.” Read Pollack’s full note and watch the trailer here: http://ti.me/2f7nVwg

“There is no formula that makes a picture influential,” Time editors write in the introduction to the book. “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.”

Photos on the list include Harry Benson’s memorable shot of the Beatles’ pillow fight; the first cell phone picture ever taken; Ron Galella’s iconic photograph of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis walking the streets of New York City; Nat Fein’s shot of Babe Ruth bowing out at Yankee Stadium; the celebrity-packed selfie organized by Ellen DeGeneres at the Oscars in 2014; Abraham Zapruder’s images of John F. Kennedy’s assassination; Annie Leibovitz’s unprecedented photo of the seven month pregnant Demi Moore on the cover of Vanity Fair; Alfred Eisenstaedt’s photo of a sailor passionately kissing a nurse as they celebrate V-J Day in Time’s Square; the first full-color view of earth taken by William Anders from the moon; Harold Edgerton’s revolutionary 1957 stop-motion photo “Milk Drop Coronet;” David Jackson’s searing funeral image of the brutally beaten Emmett Till; Nilüfer Demir’s image of 3-year-old Syrian refugee Alan Kurdi; Malcolm Browne’s photograph of a burning monk in Vietnam; and many more.

Highlights from the 100 Most Influential Photos:

Windblown Jackie, Photograph by Ron Galella: http://ti.me/2glwLce 
This candid shot of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis by a paparazzi pioneer with disregard for restraining orders embodies all that is controversial and artful about celebrity portraiture. 
--Watch the story behind the photo: http://ti.me/2f3vZej

Earthrise, Photograph by William Anders, NASA: http://ti.me/2eJezbx 
In a year of war, violence and tumult, the Apollo 8 mission gave Americans a new source of pride in their achievements—and gave the planet a new view of its place in the cosmos. 
--Watch the story behind the photo: http://ti.me/2eJcHzu

Muhammad Ali vs. Sonny Liston, Photograph by Neil Leifer: http://ti.me/2g02PRz 
Neil Leifer’s iconic image of Muhammed Ali towering triumphant over Sonny Liston pinpoints the moment Ali became a larger-than-life legend.
--Watch the story behind the photo: http://ti.me/2glpp8V

The Babe Bows Out, Photography by Nat Fein: http://ti.me/2f3vsJb 
On the day the Yankees retired Babe Ruth’s number, Nat Fein’s instinct to shoot him from behind paid homage not only to the baseball legend but to the House that Ruth built. 
--Watch the story behind the photo: http://ti.me/2fYSYYI

Behind Closed Doors, Photograph by Donna Ferrato: http://ti.me/2fzxnZO 
The first published photo to record an act of domestic violence unfolding, Donna Ferrato’s shocking picture brought the issue of spousal abuse out of the shadows. 
--Watch the story behind the photo: http://ti.me/2eJgNHK

Tank Man, Photograph by Jeff Widener: http://ti.me/2fYFHAP 
The Chinese citizen standing up to a row of tanks in Jeff Widener’s iconic Tiananmen Square image became a global symbol of dignity in the face of violent repression. 
--Watch the story behind the photo: http://ti.me/2f3r1OG

(Untitled) Cowboy, Photograph by Richard Prince: http://ti.me/2glqzB2 
His luminous photographs of Marlboro ads, minus the text, made Richard Prince a deeply controversial—and eventually very wealthy—artist of appropriation. 
--Watch the story behind the photo: http://ti.me/2glsxSc

The Falling Man, Photograph by Richard Drew: http://ti.me/2fYRnCf 
Most images of 9/11 depict destruction on a massive scale. But Richard Drew’s quiet picture of one man falling from the towers conveys the tragedy of every life lost that day. 
--Watch the story behind the photo: http://ti.me/2gjL2pe

The Somalia Famine, Photograph by James Nachtwey: http://ti.me/2g04AhK 
Mass tragedies, as photojournalist James Nachtwey says, happen to individuals. His focus on the individual victims of Somalia's famine led to the saving of 1.5 million lives. 
--Watch the story behind the photo: http://ti.me/2f3Andj

See all the videos here: http://ti.me/2fYMGrV

See the entire 100 Most Influential Photos of All Time collection on Time.com: time.com/100photos

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About Time Inc. 
Time Inc. (NYSE:TIME) is a leading content company that engages over 150 million consumers every month through our portfolio of premium brands across platforms. By combining our distinctive content with our proprietary data and people-based targeting, we offer highly differentiated end-to-end solutions to marketers across the multi-media landscape. Our influential brands include People, Time, Fortune, Sports Illustrated, InStyle, Real Simple and Southern Living, as well as more than 50 diverse titles in the United Kingdom. Time Inc. has been extending the power of our brands through various acquisitions and investments, including Viant, an advertising technology firm with a specialized people-based marketing platform, The Foundry, Time Inc.’s creative lab and content studio, and the People Entertainment Weekly Network (PEN). The company is also home to celebrated franchises and events, such as the Time 100, Fortune Most Powerful Women, People’s Sexiest Man Alive, Sports Illustrated’s Sportsperson of the Year, the Essence Festival and the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen. 

 

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