Taken by Neil Armstrong, it shows fellow astronaut Buzz Aldrin in the foreground, with the curved surface of the moon behind him and the vast blackness of space stretching out beyond. You don’t even need to see NASA’s “A Man on the Moon,” one of the defining images of the 20th century, to picture it in your mind. The busy setting of Times Square lends an air of size and significance to a fleeting, intimate moment, with smiling and jubilant-looking Americans celebrating the end of the war with Japan in the background accentuating the mood and message of the image. Victor Jorgensen’s famed 1945 picture, “V-J Day In Times Square,” portrays a triumphant US Navy sailor embracing and kissing a woman in New York City. Some of the most awe-inspiring and recognizable images ever taken, including “Lunch atop a Skyscraper” and “V-J Day in Times Square,” are awe-inspiring and recognizable in large part because of their backgrounds. Among the most important design elements in composing a photo with the background are leading lines and subject positioning, patterns and textures, minimalism and avoiding clutter or unwanted items, and framing. The background of an image, according to the Digital Photography School, “is vital in that it gives your photo context.” The way that your primary subject interacts with the background adds narrative to the image and helps strengthen its story. In this way, the background adds narrative to the personal stories of those mostly unidentified immigrant ironworkers who helped build New York and define the American Dream. In the background, the Hudson River is visible, alongside the Upper West Side, as well as Central Park - beyond which lies Harlem and other uptown neighborhoods where many immigrants lived. It adds scale and drama and makes us think about just how scared we might be to be perched on a beam 850 feet up in the air. Far below the workers’ dangling feet, we see the great expanse of New York, conveying how grand and growing the city was. The men in the foreground are the main subject, of course, but the background is what makes the image unforgettable. The picture was actually arranged as a publicity stunt, part of a campaign promoting the new skyscraper, with other photos showing workers throwing a football and pretending to sleep on the girders. The image depicts 11 immigrant workers eating lunch while sitting on a steel beam on the 69th floor of the nearly completed RCA Building - the Comcast Building at Rockefeller Center today - in Midtown Manhattan. 20, 1932, showing a group of iron-stomached ironworkers sitting on a steel beam high above New York City. Think of “Lunch atop a Skyscraper,” the famous black-and-white photo taken Sept. We can close our eyes and picture them as clearly as, well, pictures. Some of the most iconic images in history are etched in our minds.
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