Magnum Photos Blog

The Daily Gallery 

The Fall of the Wall 

November 9, 2012 
All Magnum photographers, whether self-described photojournalists, artists or both, are documentarians of history. Sure, some photographers seek out historical moments more than others -- some spend time on the front lines of war while others focus on the aesthetics and limits of the photographic medium itself -- but all Magnum photographers are, by the very nature of an art form that is, at its essence, a practice of capturing a specific moment in time and space, historians of some sort.

But Magnum photographers are never more influential in the creation of our collective and personal historical narratives then when they are present for a true benchmark event in history, like say, the fall of the Berlin Wall, which occurred twenty three years ago today. It's when visually revisiting an event like this that we realize just how informed our memories are by photographic documentation, for it's with images that we organize time, making sense of the sequence of things. Today, The Daily Gallery explores "The Fall of the Wall" as seen through Magnum lenses, and we ask you to post below, sharing your memories of that day and the role photography plays in those memories.