On the way to Beijing in late May of 1989, Stuart Franklin bought a long mirror lens in the Dubai airport. He had been called in a hurry by his agency, Magnum, to cover the growing student protests in Tiananmen Square. Several days later, on June 5, this lens came in handy as Franklin was photographing from the balcony of the Beijing Hotel with fellow magazine photographer Charlie Cole, capturing what would become the visual emblem of the largest political protest in communist Chinese history: a lone man squaring off in the face of an oncoming column of tanks.

I spoke with Franklin about his experience witnessing the historical events of Tiananmen Square and what it means to