Alberto Diaz Gutierrez Korda  (Cuban, 1928-2001) 

Alberto Díaz Gutiérrez Korda (Cuban, September 19, 1928–May 25, 2001) is considered to be the man who made Ernesto "Che" Guevara an icon. His image of Che became one of the most famous pictures of the 20th century. Born in Havana as the son of a railway worker, the young Korda had a variety of jobs before he started working as a photographer's assistant. It was while on an assignment for Revolucion newspaper in 1960 that Korda took the famous photo of Guevara at a protest rally, after a Belgian freighter, carrying arms to Cuba, was blown up by counterrevolutionaries while being unloaded in Havana harbor, killing more than 100 dock workers. As he later recalled, Korda was panning his lens across the figures on the dais when Guevara's face jumped into the viewfinder. The look in Guevara's eyes startled Korda so much that he instinctively captured it. Korda spent 10 years as Fidel Castro's official photographer. During this time, he used his skills to humanize the revolutionary leader's image in off-duty scenes, shared moments with Ernest Hemingway and Jean-Paul Sartre, and confronted a caged tiger at the New York Zoo.