Eric Demay

Two weeks ago, in the light of the 20th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, all media were recounting the events, putting together then-and-now type stories and interviews, editorials of all kinds criticizing the politics of the time, the censoring and silencing that leads to the ignorance of these events by most of the younger generation. Considering all these discussions, I’m quite surprised we haven’t heard more about this following story in the media.

The NYT photography blog (suitably named the Lens blog) has published an initial article about the Tianamen tank man pictures, the world-famous photographs—there are four of them, all very similar—that have carried and stood for the confrontation up to this day. The article discusses mostly the differences in composition of each shot that thus convey a different angle of the event in a photojournalistic sense.

The four photographs of the man and the tanks on Changan Avenue, all taken from the Beijing Hotel. Left to right, top to bottom: Charlie Cole, Jeff Widener/Associated Press, Stuart Franklin/Magnum Photos, Arthur Tsang Hin Wah/Reuters.

Comes along reporter Terri Jones. He was there on June 5th 1989 in Tiananmen Square and he too had shot the famous tank man, though somewhat inadvertently, in his mind a snapshot of the event among others. After developing the films, with the event then already extensively covered, he simply let it at that, filing the shot amongst the others of the day in his personal archives. It’s only when he read the blog post this week that he decided it was time to share it publicly. Of course, the Lens blog celebrates this revelation with an follow-up article, Jones recounting the story behind it.

Terril Jones/Associated Press.

In a time much before the prevalence and instantness of digital cameras, a different angle of such a historical scene helps contextualize and correctly recount the event. The relevance and insight of such a photograph is critical. As we can now see, Tank Man is standing there long before the tanks arrives, steady, bags in hand, waiting. In contrast, others are fleeing the scene, hurried. The confrontation is an idea that has yet happened. Tank man, like the tank driver, like the overlooking photographers at the Beijing Hotel, have to idea what is about the happen, how the scene will unfurl.

If released in 1989, I doubt this photograph would have made headlines. The others taken from the hotel balcony, are much more poignant, evocative of the clash on Tiananmen Square. A single man against a of tanks, you it can’t get better than that. Nevertheless, remembering the massacre 20 years later, when all that seems left are those same 4 pictures that we see over and over, this “new” picture feels like a breath of fresh air. It’s when I see stuff like this that I want to drop everything and become a photojournalist. Cliché but true: history is not what happened but what is remembered.

• Big picture has a larger shot of it and other shots of the day.
• Youtube: a video mere seconds later, the confrontation between Tank Man and the tanks.