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In memoriam: Photojournalist of Tiananmen’s iconic Tankman passes away in Bali
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Charlie Cole (1955-2019) (-/Robert Tonsing)
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merican photojournalist Charlie Cole, whose career will always be associated with the iconic photograph of the Tankman, the Chinese office worker confronting a column of tanks during the 1989 Tiananmen Square bloodshed, died in Bali last week.
Cole, 64, a Bali resident of more than 15 years, was one of four cameramen who took the same shot with a telephoto lens from a Beijing hotel balcony, but his colleagues believe it was his tight framing of the event that won him the 1989 World Press Photo of the Year award.
However, sources familiar with the jury’s deliberations in New Delhi say it was a close call with Magnum photographer Stuart Franklin’s wider shot, including a burned-out bus in the background, originally preferred. It was only after a lunch break and revote that the award went to Cole.
Watching the man in a white shirt walk into the middle of Changan Avenue as the tanks approached, waving a jacket and shopping bag, Cole recalled: “I kept shooting in anticipation of what I felt was his certain doom. But to my amazement the lead tank stopped, then tried to move around him. But the young man cut it off again”.
Eventually, Public Security Bureau (PSB) agents intervened and hurried the man away. Even to this day, as the New York Times noted in a June 5 anniversary piece, his identity and fate is still not clear and the image remains largely blocked on the internet in China.
“I think his action captured peoples’ hearts everywhere and when the moment came, his character defined the moment, rather than the moment defining him,” Cole told the Times. “He made the image. I was just one of the photographers. And I felt honored to be there.”
Worried about security men searching his room, he wrapped the roll of film in plastic and attached it to the flush chain of a toilet tank. When they did come, they found his cameras, ripped the film out and left, seemingly satisfied they had neutralized the problem –– as Cole had intended.
