I’d like to begin this year’s list of favorite photographs with Roman Vishniac’s (1897-1990) photograph “The Only Flowers of Her Youth, Warsaw, 1938.“  Vishniac photographically documented the lives of Jews in Eastern Europe on the verge of the holocaust.  Many of these were assembled in his 1983 book “A Vanished World.” The story associated with this picture is that the little girl depicted was confined to her bed all winter because she had no shoes. She was kept company only by the flowers on her wall, which were painted  painted by her father who was an artist.  And these flowers were the only ones that she had ever seen.  Today Roman Vishniac, a Russian American photographer is best known for his work on shtetl life.  However, he later in life turned, actually returned, his attention to his first great passion biology and photomicroscopy.

The archives of Vishniac’ work is at the International Center for Photography in New York City.  The archives are significant because they enable viewers to see not only the works that Vishniac chose to publish in his book but all of them.  The world of the Jews in Eastern Europe was complex. like that of all societies.

As the rest of the twentieth century unfolded and now the twenty-first begins to unfold, we are struck by a fundamental sadness.  We had hoped that the end of World War II would bring the end of world genocide.  But this was not the case. The little girl in the picture becomes a kind of “poster child” for all these victims.  She speaks to us of universal despair.

On a photographic level “The only flowers of her youth” resonates with to this despair.  We see her face, take note of her surroundings, and we know that there is something wrong.  By now we have seen enough images to immediately recognize and relate to them.  But, and I think this important, we need the title or caption to really and fully understand it.  I have come to realize that there are two types of great portraits: those that need no context and those that do.  This is a powerful and moving example of the second type.

Last year at this time I started to post a series of blogs and images that I entitled “Ten favorite photographs.”  I’d like to continue that tradition.  So starting today and then each day until the end of the year, I am going to present ten of my favorite photographs, one each day.  It is my holiday gift to you, or maybe to myself, because each time I revisit a crowning work by one of the great photographers it is a special and inspiring moment.  It is a moment to relearn the power of image.

So just a few rules of the game.

1. I am only allowed one image per photographer.  I have to choose.
2. I have to respect copyrights.  This means that most of the time you are going to have to click on the title to see the image.
3. I’m allowed to talk about photographers that I have previously discussed in this blog, but I’m not allowed to repost a picture from last year’s list..
4. I’m not going to try to order the images on a scale of one to ten, except perhaps the last.  They’re pretty much in random order.

There are two points that I find interesting about the process.  First, my list from last year stands.  These are still my top ten favorites.  But second, there is a world of fabulous images and these enrich our lives every day.  They make us laugh and they make us cry, but most of all “they give us pause.”This is because they evoke what is fundamentally common and therefore human inside us.  Such is truly the magic of photography.

I very much hope that you enjoy these photographs and I invite you to send a link to your favorites for possible inclusion on the blog.