Newly Released Photos From 20 Years Ago

Newly released photos of the events twenty years ago bring back to life this important event that is sadly fading from memory from many (but not all).

This morning, I received a Facebook message from Guardian journalist Tania Branigan with a link to her article with new photographs of the T1ananmen incident that had been kept secret for 20 years by the Chinese photographer. The backstory on the photos are here. A gallery of photos is here.

This photo provides another perspective of West Chang’an Street from the street view that you don’t get from the famous T4nk Man image.

photo credit: anonymous photographer, Guardian UK

Another perspective of West Chang’an Street comes from another newly released photo, this one from a foreign photojournalist that carried the negatives for twenty years, and only released them to the New York Times this week. Here it is:

photo credit: Terril Jones/AP

In the middle-left of the photo above, you can see a person that most likely the T4nk Man, with white shirt, slacks, and shopping bag.  A broken-down bus can be seen in the middle-left, right next to the man.  This bus is visible in one of the four famous T4nk Man pictures (see below).  The tanks are approaching in the middle-right.  Somehow, I had always envisioned him surrounded by other protesters, but this view shows a much more lonely and individual stand in the face of overwhelming power.

The New York Times blog post entitled “Behind the Scenes: A New Angle on History” on the Lens Blog, comments:

Mr. Jones’ angle on the historic encounter is vastly different from four other versions shot that day, taken at eye level moments before the tanks stopped at the feet of the lone protester. Wildly chaotic, a man ducks in the foreground, reacting from gunfire coming from the tanks. Another flashes a near-smile. Another pedals his bike, seemingly passive as the tanks rumble towards confrontation.

The photograph encourages the viewer to reevaluate the famous encounter.

Jones submitted the photo as a response to what I think was one of the most impactful posts I read about the T1ananmen incident the entire week.  On June 3, the Lens Blog interviewed four photojournalists–Charlie Cole, Stuart Franklin, Jeff Widener, Arthur Tsang Hin Wah–who took four different versions of the T4nk Man.  The post, entitled “Behind the Scenes: T4nk Man of T1an-n“, shares their experiences and the professional decisions they made, as they captured history in a challenging situation.  One of the four images we have of the T4nk Man was saved only because the photographer was resourceful enough to hide the roll in a plastic bag hidden in the water tank behind his toilet. His other film was destroyed when security forces pulled open his cameras and exposed his film.

Please read the post.  The personal accounts strongly convey a sense of mission and duty of these photojournalists.  There were a lot of heroes that day, twenty years ago.