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The Iconic Portrait of Che Guevara

Lesson 16 from: Masters of Photography

Steve McCurry

The Iconic Portrait of Che Guevara

Lesson 16 from: Masters of Photography

Steve McCurry

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Lesson Info

16. The Iconic Portrait of Che Guevara

Lesson Info

The Iconic Portrait of Che Guevara

(gentle music) I'm here at the home of Diana Diaz, the daughter of Alberto Korda. He made one of the great photographs of all time of Che Guevara. It's a photograph which everybody knows, it's probably as popular and well recognized as the Mona Lisa. It's a very simple photograph, but there's something about it that people connect to. It's hard to put your finger on it, but there's a power to that portrait and to the romanticism and this kind of heroic revolutionary which has kinda resonated with people since it was made back in the 1960s. And the most amazing thing is that Korda only made two exposures. You know people are always asking me how many pictures did it take to make that picture, or that picture. Well he took two exposures to make this iconic photograph, there was a horizontal and a vertical. The picture that ended up being the iconic one was the horizontal and they kinda clipped off a little bit on the right and a little bit on the left, they cropped it, and this is what...

we have now. There was so much more to Korda's career than just that one portrait of Che Guevara. Before the revolution he had been a portrait photographer, fashion photographer, he had an incredible body of work leading up to the Cuban Revolution. I think one of the lessons that we can learn from looking at Korda's photographs is that he was an extremely hard-working photographer. He was an accomplished fashion photographer and on top of that, he made one of the most powerful portraits in the history of photography.

Ratings and Reviews

Adriana L-G
 

For me this is not a class, is more the photographer talking about his photos and his experience. It is a little repetitive but I enjoyed. From Masters of Photography I loved Joel Meyerowitz's class and I recommend it strongly. In case you need to choose.

Student Work

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