Guerillero Heroico, 1960
A ship had exploded in Havanna harbor killing crew and dockworkers just a day before the iconic photo was taken of Cuban revolutionary Che Guevara. Korda, the photographer focused on Fidel Castro that accused the USA of the explosion.
But after Guevara was killed leading a guerrilla movement in Bolivia nearly seven years later, the Cuban regime embraced him as a martyr for the movement, and Korda’s image of the beret-clad revolutionary soon became its most enduring symbol and it became an icon in drinks, underwears, and even and reproducing images of all time, with its influence long since transcending its steely-eyed subject.