Showing posts with label Vietnam. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vietnam. Show all posts

Wednesday, January 31, 2024

Associated Press Photo Operations Head Hal Buell: ‘I had the greatest job in the whole world.’

 Via AP

January 31, 2024


Hal Buell, who led AP’s photo operations from darkroom era into the digital age, dies at 92


SUNNYVALE, Calif. (AP) — Hal Buell, who led The Associated Press’ photo operations from the darkroom era into the age of digital photography over a four-decade career with the news organization that included 12 Pulitzer Prizes and some of the defining images of the Vietnam War, has died. He was 92.

Buell died Monday in Sunnyvale, California, after battling pneumonia, his daughter Barbara Buell said in an email. His final two months were spent with her and her husband, and he died in their home with his daughter at his side.

“He was a great father, friend, mentor, and driver of important transitions in visual media during his long AP career,” Barbara Buell said. “When asked by the numerous doctors, PT, and medical personnel he met over the last six months what he had done during his working life, he always said the same thing: ‘I had the greatest job in the whole world.’”

Colleagues described Buell as a visionary who encouraged photographers to try new ways of covering hard news. As the editor in charge of AP’s photo operations from the late 1960s to the 1990s, he supervised a staff that won a dozen Pulitzers on his watch and he worked in 33 countries, with legendary AP photographers including Eddie Adams, Horst Faas and Nick Ut.


Famous black and white photograph from the Vietnam War of South Vietnamese National Police Chief Brig Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan executes a suspected Viet Cong officer with a single pistol shot in the head in Saigon, Vietnam, Feb. 1, 1968.. (AP Photo/Eddie Adams, File)

FILE - South Vietnamese National Police Chief Brig Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan executes a suspected Viet Cong officer with a single pistol shot in the head in Saigon, Vietnam, Feb. 1, 1968. The image won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography. (AP Photo/Eddie Adams, File)


“Hal pushed us an extra step,” Adams said in an internal AP newsletter at the time of Buell’s retirement in 1997. “The AP had always been cautious, or seemed to be, about covering hard news. But that was the very thing Buell encouraged.”

Buell made the crucial decision in 1972 to run Ut’s photo of a naked young girl fleeing her burning village after napalm was dropped on it by South Vietnamese Air Force aircraft. The image of Kim Phuc became one of the most haunting images of the Vietnam War and came to define for many all that was misguided about the war.

After the image was transmitted from Saigon to AP headquarters in New York, Buell examined it closely and discussed it with other editors for about 10 minutes before deciding to run it.


black and white photograph from the Vietnam war of  terrified children, including 9-year-old Kim Phuc, center, as they run down Route 1 near Trang Bang after an aerial napalm attack on suspected Viet Cong hiding places. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)
FILE - In this June 8, 1972, file photo taken by Huynh Cong “Nick” Ut, South Vietnamese forces follow behind terrified children, including 9-year-old Kim Phuc, center, as they run down Route 1 near Trang Bang after an aerial napalm attack on suspected Viet Cong hiding places. The image won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography. He was 92. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)


“We didn’t have any objection to the picture because it was not prurient. Yes, nudity but not prurient in any sense of the word,” Buell said in a 2016 interview. “It was the horror of war. It was innocence caught in the crossfire, and it went right out, and of course it became a lasting icon of that war, of any war, of all wars.”

Ut was just 20 when he made the iconic photo that won him the Pulitzer Prize. Without Buell’s support, he said, the photo might never had become a symbol of the war.

“He thought it was powerful, and he wanted to get it out right away,” Ut said by phone Tuesday.

He said he last spoke several weeks ago with Buell, who he called a mentor and a great friend.

“Hal was the best boss I ever had,” Ut said. “He was very supportive of me.”

Santiago Lyon, a former vice president and director of photography at AP, called Buell “a giant in the field of news agency photojournalism.”

David Ake, who recently retired as AP’s director of photography, said Buell set the standard for that role.

“I can’t tell you the number of times I would get a pearl of ‘Hal wisdom’ from one staffer or another,” Ake said. “He will be missed both in the AP and by the entire photojournalism community.”

Buell joined the AP in the Tokyo bureau on a part-time basis after graduating from Northwestern University in 1954 with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in journalism. He was serving with the Army at the time, working on the military newspaper Stars and Stripes.

Out of the Army two years later, he joined AP’s Chicago bureau as a radio writer, and a year later, in 1957, was promoted to the photo desk in AP’s New York office.

Buell returned to Tokyo at the end of the decade to be supervisory photo editor for Asia and came back to New York in 1963 to be AP’s photo projects editor. He became executive news photo editor in 1968 and in 1977 he was named assistant general manager for news photos.

During his decades with AP, technology in news photography took astonishing leaps, going from six hours to six minutes to snap, process and transmit a color photo. Buell implemented the transition from a chemical darkroom where film was developed to digital transmission and digital news cameras. He also helped create AP’s digital photo archive in 1997.

“In the ‘80s, when we went from black-and-white to all color, we were doing a good job to send two or three color pictures a day. Now we send 300,” Buell said in the 1997 AP newsletter.

Former AP CEO Lou Boccardi said in a statement that Buell drove this remarkable period of innovation and transition, but he never forgot, nor did he let his staff forget, that capturing “the” image that told the story was where it all had to start.

“Fortunately for us, and for news photography, his vision and energy empowered and inspired AP Photos for decades,” Boccardi said.

After retiring in 1997, Buell wrote books about photography, including “From Hell to Hollywood: The Incredible Journey of AP Photographer Nick Ut;" “Uncommon Valor, Common Virtue: Iwo Jima and the Photograph That Captured America;” and “The Kennedy Brothers: A Legacy in Photographs.” He was the author of more than a dozen other books, produced film documentaries for the History Channel and lectured across the United States.

“In the ‘80s, when we went from black-and-white to all color, we were doing a good job to send two or three color pictures a day. Now we send 300,” Buell said in the 1997 AP newsletter.

Former AP CEO Lou Boccardi said in a statement that Buell drove this remarkable period of innovation and transition, but he never forgot, nor did he let his staff forget, that capturing “the” image that told the story was where it all had to start.

“Fortunately for us, and for news photography, his vision and energy empowered and inspired AP Photos for decades,” Boccardi said.

After retiring in 1997, Buell wrote books about photography, including “From Hell to Hollywood: The Incredible Journey of AP Photographer Nick Ut;" “Uncommon Valor, Common Virtue: Iwo Jima and the Photograph That Captured America;” and “The Kennedy Brothers: A Legacy in Photographs.” He was the author of more than a dozen other books, produced film documentaries for the History Channel and lectured across the United States.

FILE 




Friday, April 21, 2023

Pulitzer-winning photojournalist, Kent State shooting survivor John Filo discusses modern journalism

 Via The Berkeley Beacon

Pulitzer-winning photojournalist, Kent State shooting survivor John Filo discusses modern journalism


By Shannon Garrido, Content Managing Editor

April 20, 2023

A little more than half a century after the 1970 massacre at Kent State University, the Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist John Paul Filo feels that the nation is in a state of confusion and outrage.

Filo, a survivor of the tragic shootings, photographed 14 year-old protester Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling over the body of 20-year-old Jeffrey Miller, a college student protesting the Vietnam War, who was shot dead by the Ohio National Guard soldiers. In an event last week, sponsored by Emerson’s Communication Studies Department, Filo and Vecchio were invited to speak to students last week at the Bright Screening Room of the Paramount Theatre.

Filo’s kind eyes and enthusiastic tone make his otherwise tall demeanor and impressive reputation less intimidating. Yet, in an interview with the Beacon, Filo went quiet before answering how people view that tragic event today—“I don’t know,” he says.

“It’s a generational thing,” Filo said. “The people that don’t know anything about Kent State are only a little younger than me. Yet the killing of Americans is still going on. And it’s even become more efficient.”

Filo, at the time a student journalist, was in the college photo lab when he heard gunshots on campus, leading him to rush to the courtyard where he witnessed Vecchio crying out to a body on the ground. As he prepared his lens, he noticed a guard pointing and firing a gun directly at him. Once he realized the guards carried real bullets—something many of the students did not initially realize—he turned back to run. However, he experienced something he describes as a “combination of innocence and stupidity” causing him to change his mind, and before he knew it, Filo was running back to photograph the scene.

Filo said sarcastically that his actions on that day were normally reserved for conflict zones.

“I never wanted to be a war photographer,” he said. “I was shot at once, that was enough for me.”

Since the KSU shooting, semi-automatic weapons available to the public have become twice as deadly, yet Filo said that the outrage, and the corresponding need to understand the history behind gun violence, has become far less common.

For years, students from middle school to college would constantly contact Filo, curious to learn about his experience at Kent State that fateful day. He hasn’t received a call like that in nearly five years. He wonders if the more time goes by, the more people forget that the massacres’ consequences affect politics in this nation today.

Filo believes that this disconnection is part of the new wave of journalism, where quantity trumps quality and the more terrifying an issue becomes, the more desensitized people become to it.

“Great things happened when people started shining a light on the bad parts of our society,” said Filo. “In the turn of the 1800s, pictures showing child labor were horrible, but that brought in labor laws. Horrific pictures of the Holocaust or the Civil Rights Movement actually shocked people.”

Filo said that the Kent State shooting was another moment that shocked people. A wave of papers would not run his photographs, he said, because it revealed many truths across the nation.

Filo wonders if “the dumbing down of our whole industry,” where journalists stop trying to send a message, prevents stories from having the same impact.

“Now we are on this teeter totter of mass murder, funeral, mass murder, funeral,” Filo said. “And there’s nothing breaking this rocking back and forth. Personally, I’m saying there needs to be that shock and outright disgust that brings people to the street to protest.”

Although he is glad his photograph gained the traction it did, the efforts would be futile to Filo if journalism stops having the same impact today. In regards to how photojournalism could steer away from sensationalism while still being persuasive, Filo believes there is no harm in relying on tools of the past.

“What happens today is to get their money’s worth, the [newspapers] say ‘hey take a digital camera go out and shoot,’ said Filo. “Don’t try to edit down the visual space to try to get a message out of it, to push onto the viewer. Instead they go and take the 2000 photos.”

Photography, Filo said, held a different value during his career. When new film colors came out—and suddenly color meant more than just ink on paper—it transformed the photographer’s ability to tell stories. Filo said he misses the authenticity of it all, joking about a past frustration with sports photographers in the West Coast who could make their players look tanner and livelier than those in the east coast. Yet it was reflective to the West Coast sun—which is less constant here in the gloomy east.

Today, Filo said he fears he can no longer tell where the photos were taken, with photoshop and advanced camera equipment. He believes this makes it more difficult to trust, or even care about the pictures displayed in the media. However, the need for far-reaching photojournalism is more dire than ever.

Filo said that the media should not distinguish its coverage between what he considers state-sanctioned violence—like what occurred at Kent State—to the surplus of mass shootings the nation has experienced the last few decades. Yet he fears that a careless and repetitive media that “recycles” facts, photos and figures does little to make the viewer uncomfortable when mass shootings occur.

He referenced the shooting at The Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee where six lives were lost, including nine-year-olds—adding on to his initial point that regardless of how much coverage it received, there wasn’t nearly enough shock or outrage.

“It’s one thing to see a wounded adult,” Filo said. “It’s another thing to see a butchered child.”

He woders if the media’s approach to this news as “another day, another tragedy,” discourages action instead of promoting it.

Friday, March 25, 2022

In Memoriam: Dirck Halstead, 1936—2022

 Via The Briscoe Center for American History

March 25, 2022


 Dirck Halstead, award-winning photojournalist, freelance photographer, and digital journalism innovator, died on March 25, 2022.

Halstead was a pioneering photojournalist, best known for his work for Time magazine, UPI, and Life magazine. He covered major world events throughout the late twentieth century including the Vietnam War and the fall of Saigon in 1975, five presidential administrations, President Richard Nixon’s trip to China, and the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan. He was the publisher and editor of the online magazine the Digital Journalist. Halstead donated his archive to the Briscoe Center in 1995.

“I have never thought of myself as a great photographer. That’s beside the point. What I am is a storyteller. I have always felt that [my career] isn’t about what I saw. It is about how I fulfilled my responsibility to reporting history.”

Friday, February 2, 2018

1968: It Was Fifty Years Ago Today

Art Shay: "Welcome Democrats", Conrad Hilton Hotel, Chicago, August, 1968



Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, is pleased to present “1968: It Was Fifty Years Ago Today”, a major exhibition featuring more than 50 photographs from one of the most tumultuous years in United States history. The exhibition opens Friday, February 2 and will continue through April 15


The year 1968 marked many changes for the United States. It signaled the end of the Kennedy-Johnson presidencies, the pinnacle of the civil rights movement, the beginning of Women's rights and Gay rights, and the beginning of the end of the war in Vietnam. More than that, it meant a change in public attitudes and beliefs. Photojournalism had a dominating role in the shaping of public attitudes at the time. Now, the exhibition comes amid a time of heightened awareness from political, racial, and social tensions.

The year started with the Viet Cong opening the Tet Offensive by attacking major cities of South Vietnam, a move that triggered President Lyndon B. Johnson's call for peace negotiations. Johnny Cash recorded "Live at Folsom Prison", Eddie Adams photographs a Viet Cong officer as he is executed by Nguyen Ngoc Loan, a South Vietnamese National Police Chief. This photograph made headlines around the world, eventually winning the 1969 Pulitzer Prize, and sways U.S. public opinion against the war. On March 16, the Mai Lai massacre further shocks the nation, and on March 31st, President Lyndon B. Johnson surprised the nation by choosing not to run for reelection. On April 4th, civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. was shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee, leading to riots in Washington, D.C. and other cities. In late April, student protesters at Columbia University in New York City take over administration buildings and shut down the university, only one of many college protests that would unfold across the county.

In June, Robert F. Kennedy, former U.S. attorney general and U.S. senator from New York, was assassinated in Los Angeles while campaigning for the Democratic Presidential nomination, and Bill Eppridge records a lone busboy trying to comfort Kennedy as he lays sprawled on the kitchen floor of the Ambassador Hotel. In August, the Democratic National Convention in Chicago was marred by clashes between Vietnam War protesters and Mayor Daley's police force. At Mexico City's Summer Olympic Games, African American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos won gold and bronze medals, then bowed their heads and raised clenched fists during the playing of the U.S. national anthem in protest of U.S. racism. And in November, as the Beatles' "White Album" is released Richard Nixon was elected President with running mate Spiro Agnew, making one of the most extraordinary political comebacks in U.S. history. Finally, in December, Elvis Presley's "1968 Comeback Special" airs on NBC television and Apollo 8 enters orbit around the moon.

In culture, Barbarella, Funny Girl, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Planet of the Apes, Rosemary's Baby, and Yellow Submarine dominate the box office; the Fillmore East opens in New York, Hair opens on Broadway, and "Hey Jude" by the Beatles and "Jumpin' Jack Flash by The Rolling Stones top the music charts.

Friday, November 3, 2017

Texas Book Festival panel discussion of "Eddie Adams: Bigger than the Frame"



The Briscoe Center invites you to a Texas Book Festival panel discussion of:

"Eddie Adams: Bigger than the Frame"
A Co-publication of the Briscoe Center and the University of Texas Press

Sunday, November 5, 2017
12:00 p.m.–12:45 p.m.

Moderator: Don Carleton
Panelists: Alyssa Adams and Anne Wilkes Tucker
Location: The Contemporary Austin–Jones Center
...
Drawn from the Briscoe Center's Eddie Adams Photographic Archive, "Bigger Than the Frame" presents a career-spanning selection of a renowned photographer's finest work. In addtion to Adams's much-praised Vietnam War photography, the book includes images that uncannily reflect the world and domestic issues of today, including immigration, conflict in the Middle East, and the refugee crisis. They attest to Adams's overwhelming desire to empathize with others and tell their stories–as he once observed, "I actually become the person I am taking a picture of. If you are starving, I am starving, too." Best known for Saigon Execution, his Pulitzer Prize–winning photograph that forever shaped how the world views the horrors of war, Adams won more than five hundred awards, including the George Polk Award for News Photography three times and the Robert Capa Gold Medal.

Books will be available for purchase at the event.

The Jones Center is located at Seventh Street and Congress Avenue. Street and garage parking are available nearby.




Eddie Adams' fine art prints are available from the Monroe Gallery of Photography.

Saturday, June 13, 2015

EDDIE ADAMS DAY 2015




             



via New Kensington Camera Club


Please join us to celebrate the life and times of one of America's greatest photographers, New Kensington's own PULITZER PRIZE WINNER,
EDDIE ADAMS.




- 1969 Pulitzer Prize Winner for Spot News Photography -



Show Opening Saturday, June 13th, 2015
10:00am at the Alle-Kiski Valley Heritage Museum in Tarentum, PA. The program will include a Marine Color Guard, special guests, a display of 21 large Eddie Adams prints from his Paris Exhibition, a display of photos by Barry Lavery, and the Inspired by Eddie Adams Show by members of the New Kensington Camera Club. Light refreshments will be provided for guests at the Museum.
 
A screening of the Eddie Adams documentary,
"An Unlikely Weapon" will take place at 1:00pm
 
A dinner at the Clarion Hotel in New Kensington will follow at 6:00pm with special guest speaker,  Justin Merriman of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. The photo exhibit will run throughout the month of June.
 
Proceeds from the show and dinner will be used toward the purchase of a Pennsylvania Historical Marker for Eddie Adams in his hometown of New Kensington, PA. Additional proceeds will be used toward the Eddie Adams, John Filo Scholarship fund and Æ’-Stop ALS/NKCC Cares.
Museum Admission is $5.00 (free to all paid members of NKCC  & Alle-Kiski Valley Historical Society)
Dinner Tickets are on sale for $25.00
Tickets for the EAD2015 Dinner may be purchased in advance from NKCC or  the Alle-Kiski Valley Heritage Museum. A limited number of tickets will be available at the door before the dinner.
 


Eddie Adams Day is an event held by the New Kensington Camera Club with the cooperation and sponsorship of the Alle-Kiski Valley Historical Society.
Visit nkcameraclub.org and akvhs.org for further information.




Special Guests
   
Pittsburgh Tribune-Review Photographer


Justin Merriman


Justin Merriman (b. September 28, 1977), an award-winning photojournalist with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, has spent more than a decade traveling the world to cover politics, wars, natural disasters and civil unrest. His work has appeared in leading national publications and he has received multiple top
journalism awards.

After covering the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks – including the crash of United Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania – Merriman committed to chronicling the U.S. military and its war on terror. He has followed this story across the United States and into the conflict zones of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iraq. He also has covered life in Fidel Castro’s Cuba in 2002, India’s efforts to
eradicate polio from its population, the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, Pope Benedicts XVI’s visit to Cuba in 2012, the 2013 conclave and election of
Pope Francis in Rome, the second anniversary of Egypt’s revolution and subsequent unrest, Russia’s invasion of Crimea and the international political crisis that unfolded in Ukraine in 2014, and most recently, traveled the U.S. border with Mexico documenting issues on immigration.

Merriman has worked at the Tribune- Review since 1999, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, American Profile Magazine, Time, USA Today, MSNBC, Sports
Illustrated and publications across the globe. He has been recognized with numerous regional, national and international awards from organizations including: the Society of Professional Journalists, the National Press Photographers Association, the Society for News Design, the Atlanta Photojournalism Seminar, the Northern Short Course, the Southern Short Course, the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, the Military Reporters and Editors Association, and the Western Pennsylvania Press Club. He was awarded Photographer of the Year by the News Photographer Association of Greater Pittsburgh four times.

In 2014, Merriman received awards for his work in Egypt including the top award in the International Photo Story category in the Northern Short Course contest and an award of excellence in the Pictures of the Year International Competition for News Picture Story.

Born in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, Merriman graduated from the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg in 2000 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Writing. In 2009, the university awarded him its prestigious Alumnus of Distinction award.

Currently Merriman lives in Oakmont with his fiancé, Stephanie Strasburg, also a photojournalist with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Justin is a Barnstorm XV alumnus and worked for the Valley News Dispatch.


    

  
Photographic work of Eddie Adams can be viewed at the Monroe Gallery of Photography.

For more information visit http://eddieadamsday.com/

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Eddie Adams exhibition of photographs opens at the Dublin Arts Council

Street Execution of a Viet Cong Prisoner, Saigon, 1968


Eddie Adams' Pulitzer-prize winning shot of a man being executed on the streets of Saigon.


Via the Dublin Villager
By JENNIFER NOBLIT
Wednesday May 20, 2015


The exhibition of photographs set to open at the Dublin Arts Council Monday, May 25, is likely to bring conflicting emotions.


Eddie Adams: Vietnam is set to run through Sept. 11 at the Dublin Arts Council, 7125 Riverside Drive, and will show 50 photographs from Adams' time covering the Vietnam War, including his Pulitzer-prize winning shot of a man being executed on the streets of Saigon.


A group of veterans working with the Arts Council on the exhibition got a preview of some of the photos and it brought back memories for Vietnam veteran Jeff Noble.


"It was representative of my time," Noble said of the exhibition.


Noble spent one year in Vietnam as a pilot, supporting troops with firepower on a UH1C helicopter.


"Believe it or not there were some good times," he said.


Humor and camaraderie among troops number among the good times, as well as a job well done.


"There were times when we knew we had helped the troops on the ground and that was a good thing," he said.


Noble also saw some amazing things, including two soldiers walk away from a bad situation.


Noble was called into support troops under siege and after hitting the target twice he was told to cease fire because two U.S. soldiers were in the area.


"I couldn't believe after all this ordinance those guys were still alive," he said.
But Noble also remembered bad times, especially the third day after he arrived in Vietnam.


"We heard noise on the charlie pad from a team getting ready to go," he said.
The team was on the ground, waiting for a storm to pass, Noble said.
"Lightening hit the fox mike (of the helicopter) and sent electricity through the whole ship," he said.


The electricity launched rockets and one went into the lead helicopter, killing the pilot and injuring others.


"It was a rude awakening to life in the war zone," Noble said.


More bad news hit Noble within weeks of arriving in the war zone: "A good friend of mine from flight school went to a different unit and on his second mission in country, his helicopter was destroyed by enemy fire and he died."


Noble and fellow veteran Leroy Clendenen have provided the Arts Council with stories of their time in the Vietnam War for the exhibit and a booth will be set up to take other stories and recollections.


The public will also be invited to write letters to service members and veterans. Workshops on Tim O'Brien's book "The Things They Carried" are slated for August and will discuss the physical and emotional weight of war.


Counselors will also be available at peak times during the exhibit to offer guidance.
The photos could bring mixed reactions, and Noble offered advice for talking to Vietnam Veterans there: "Walk up and say 'Welcome home and thank you for your service.' "



Monday, March 9, 2015

Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission to place historical marker to honor Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Eddie Adams



Eddie Adams covers action in South Vietnam Eddie Adams covers action in South Vietnam in 1965 for The Associated Press.
Associated Press

Eddie Adams covers action in South Vietnam in 1965
for The Associated Press 


Via The Pittsburgh Post Gazette
Three Western Pennsylvania historical sites were among 22 selected by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission to receive the familiar blue and gold commemorative roadside markers.

Markers will be placed at or near the site of George Westinghouse’s gas wells in Point Breeze, in New Kensington to honor Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Eddie Adams and in Erie to memorialize the iconic “Don’t Give Up the Ship” battle flag from the War of 1812.

Dates for installation and precise locations of the markers are not determined until local interests have raised money to pay for the markers, said Howard Pollman, spokesman for the commission. The cost ranges from $1,400 to $1,875.

“They are usually placed as close as possible to the place where the event took place or the person lived,” he said.

Mr. Westinghouse began to experiment with natural gas extraction in the 1880s, when he also was pioneering electricity generation. He drilled four wells at the site of his Point Breeze estate.

“At the time the fuel was unsafe and dangerous to use,” the commission said. “Over the next few years, Westinghouse patented over 30 inventions for the distribution, safe use and metering of natural gas. His work was instrumental in the expansion and availability of natural gas as an important widespread energy source.”

Mr. Adams is best-known for a photograph, taken in 1968 during the Vietnam War, of a Vietnamese police chief firing a bullet into the head of a Viet Cong prisoner from arm’s length range on a Saigon street. The image appeared worldwide, including on the front page of The New York Times, and galvanized opposition to the war in the U.S.

The Pulitzer Prize he won for the image was one of about 500 photography awards he received during a career that saw him cover 13 wars.

The commission said Mr. Adams got his start as a photographer in his hometown of New Kensington, shooting photographs for his high school yearbook and as a staff photographer for the local newspaper. He died in 2004 and was buried at Greenwood Memorial Park in Lower Burrell.

Seven Erie women created a battle flag in the summer of 1813 for Oliver Hazard Perry to fly on his ship, the Lawrence, in the Battle of Lake Erie.

The slogan was from the last words of Capt. James Lawrence and became a rallying cry for the ship’s crew, which helped to defeat the British in the pivotal battle.

Replica flags with “Don’t Give Up the Ship” are displayed throughout Erie, which held a yearlong celebration of the battle’s bicentennial in 2013.

Mr. Pollman said the marker likely will be placed near the Erie Maritime Museum, home to a full-sized replica of the Brig Niagara, which also took part in the battle.

The commission selected the 22 markers from a pool of 50 applications. Currently, nearly 2,300 historical markers are in place throughout the state.

More information on the Historical Marker Program, including application information, is available online at www.pahistoricalmarkers.com.


Monroe Gallery of Photography will host a major exhibition of Eddie Adams' photographs in Spring, 2016, in conjunction with a new book of Adams' Vietnam photographs by the University of Texas Press .

Wednesday, March 4, 2015

Alyssa Adams talking about her career in photography, the Eddie Adams Workshop, business, networking, and more


Friday, March 6, 11 AM Eastern

Join Robert Caplin and Alyssa Adams, deputy photo editor at TV Guide, for a LIVE video podcast recording in NYC. They'll be talking about her career in photography, the Eddie Adams Workshop, business, networking, and much more.

This event is open to the public to attend both in person locally in NYC or online at http://thephotobrigade.com/LIVE.



Monroe Gallery of Photography is proud to represent the Eddie Adams Estate. Watch for a major new book relase of Adams' Vietnam photographs and a major exhibition in Spring, 2016 at Monroe Gallery.

Thursday, March 13, 2014

The Wall That Heals comes to Santa Fe

Washington, DC, 2006


Via The Santa Fe New Mexican


Schedule of events
The exhibit is a half-scale replica of the actual wall, and will be on display at Fort Marcy Field in Santa Fe, N.M. Viewing is permitted 24 hours a day from March 19, 4 p.m. — March 24, 6 a.m. There is no charge for admission.


Tuesday, March 18, 2014
1:00 p.m. — VVMF Traveling Wall arrives, escorted by the American Legion Riders Post 26 and NM Patriot Guard Riders

Wednesday, March 19, 2014
8:00 a.m. — VVMF Traveling Wall Set-up
4:00 p.m. — Open to the Public

Thursday, March 20, 2014
11:00 a.m. — Welcoming Ceremony and speech by the founder on the History of the Wall

Saturday, March 22, 2014
5:00 p.m. — Reading of the 398 New Mexican names on the wall, followed by a candlelight vigil

Sunday, March 23, 2014
11:00 a.m. — Honoring Ceremony

Monday, March 24, 2014
6:00 a.m.— Viewing of the Traveling Wall ends
8:00 a.m. — Tear down begins








Monday, November 4, 2013

Springfield Museums All Access: Our time with Bill Eppridge

Bill Eppridge (1938-2013)
Photo by

Via MassLive.com
By Holly Smith Bovè The Republican    
November 04, 2013 at 6:00 AM, updated November 04, 2013 at 8:14 AM



The staff and curators here at the Springfield Museums were saddened to learn that Time Life photographer Bill Eppridge had passed away on October 3. Bill had recently paid us two visits, both in conjunction with our recent exhibit, The Beatles: Backstage and Behind the Scenes. Bill’s work comprised the majority of that exhibit, and we were honored to have him join us just prior to the opening.

On a cloudy day in March, I met Bill and his wife, Adrienne Aurichio, at the D’Amour Museum for a quick meeting before he was due to tape an interview on WGBY’s Connecting Point. Our brief “hello” turned into an impromptu guided tour of the photos by Bill himself. As a Beatles fan, it was truly amazing to hear his recollections of meeting the Fab Four after their arrival at JFK airport, and how they charmed the press corps with their energy and enthusiasm– a far cry from the “drug fiends” that Bill and his colleagues were told to expect. Seeing a potential bigger story to tell, Bill quickly asked his editors at LIFE if he could stay on and photograph the group. Luckily, they agreed, and Bill’s photographs from those first weeks in the U.S. captured a critical moment in our national and cultural history.

Bill charmed all of us in that first meeting, stopping to chat with staff and even taking a picture with some lucky photography students from Sci-Tech who happened to be attending the exhibit. He, in turn, was transfixed by the Indian Motocycles and Rolls-Royces at the Wood Museum; he had always dreamed of owning a vintage Indian.

Holly photo-1.jpg


Bill guides Holly through his Beatles photos at the D'Amour Museum.  
 

Bill returned to the Museums in April for a special talk in conjunction with the exhibit, during which he recalled his time with the Beatles and his many other major assignments. He seemingly covered every major news stories of the time – from the Civil Rights Movement to Vietnam, and from Woodstock to Apollo 13. His photos from even one of those assignments would have been the peak of any photographer’s career, but they were all eclipsed by Bill’s haunting photo of Robert F. Kennedy, mortally wounded by an assassin’s bullet, his head cradled by a busboy. Bill spoke with obvious emotion about his time covering RFK’s campaign for president in 1968, and how the candidate inspired a truly diverse group of supporters. On that fateful day in Los Angeles, Bill was only steps behind Kennedy when the shots rang out. Bill was clearly proud of that picture, was haunted by it, and recognized its place in this country’s history.

In an industry where we meet many interesting and inspiring people, Bill truly stood out as one of the most memorable. Wherever he went, he was gracious and accommodating, and he always had his camera at the ready, fully prepared for that next great shot. We at the Museums mourn Bill’s passing, and we feel blessed to have had the chance to not only display his work and meet one of the true legends in his field but also to introduce him to our amazing city and community.

A selection of Bill Eppridge's photographs will be featured in the exhibition "The LIFE Photographers", Monroe Gallery, November 29 - January 24, 2014.

Related: Bill Eppridge: An American Treasure

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Second Annual “Eddie Adams Day" Honors Pulitzer Prize-Winning Photographer



Bill Shirley | For The Valley News Dispatch
Retired Associated Press photo executive Hal Buell speaks to a crowd at the Eddie Adams Day dinner on Saturday, June 8, 2013, at the Clarion Hotel in New Kensington. Buell worked with Adams when Adams took his famous photo of an execution in the streets of Saigon in 1968. Here, he discusses another well-known photo from Vietnam of a napalmed girl running by photographer Nick Ut.


Via TribLive
Published: Sunday, June 9, 2013, 12:06 a.m.
                    
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
Getting a state historical marker for New Kensington native and Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Eddie Adams has been an objective of the New Kensington Camera Club since its creation in 2011.
 
It's one the club hopes to realize about this time next year, club President Don Henderson said.
 
 
The club hosted festivities for its second annual “Eddie Adams Day” Saturday, beginning with a program and display of his photos at the Alle-Kiski Valley Heritage Museum in Tarentum and concluding with a dinner at the Clarion Hotel in New Kensington.
 
Adams' former editor, retired Associated Press photo executive Hal Buell, was the guest speaker for the dinner.
 
Inspired by Adams' “signature picture,” Buell spoke of “Pictures People Hate,” images that make people angry with the newspapers that publish them. He had the audience play the role of editor, deciding whether they would print images considered controversial.
 
Buell, 82, of Queens, New York City, retired from the AP in 1997. He said Adams did not like the photo for which he is best known.
 
“Eddie was an incredible photographer and a remarkable human being. His obsession in life was to make great pictures. He just wanted to be the world's best photographer,” Buell said. “He didn't like pictures that hurt people.”
 
The reaction to the photo was bad, Buell said, not because it was graphic, but because it showed what “bums” America's allies were in Vietnam, and brought into question how the nation got involved with a country that would carry out an execution on a street.
 
But Adams felt his own image portrayed the executioner, police chief Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, badly. Earlier that day, Loan's aide and the aide's family had been assassinated by the Viet Cong, Buell said.
 
“For many years he wouldn't talk about the picture,” Buell said of Adams. “He felt the picture did not tell the whole story.”
 
Seeing no reason Adams shouldn't be honored with a historical marker, Henderson said only time has delayed it — a requirement for a person to be so recognized is that they be deceased at least 10 years.
 
Adams died Sept. 19, 2004, making him eligible beginning next year.
 
Proceeds from the Saturday events will go toward pursuit of the marker. Henderson said the club will apply for it in December. If approved, he hopes for a dedication ceremony including a street festival this time next year, which falls near Adams' birthday on June 12.
 
Because Adams had been a Marine, Henderson said it would be fitting for the marker to be located at the New Kensington war memorial on Ninth Street, across from Peoples Library.
 
Henderson said the club also hopes to have “Eddie Adams Day” made an official observance in New Kensington.
 
Brian C. Rittmeyer is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. He can be reached at 724-226-4701 or brittmeyer@tribweb.com.



On display
Twenty-one photographs by New Kensington native and Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Eddie Adams are on display this month at the Alle-Kiski Valley Heritage Museum, 224 E. Seventh Ave. in Tarentum.
 
A $5 donation is suggested for those who are not members of the historical society.
 
The photos can be viewed from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. June 12, 15, 19, 22 and by appointment. To schedule an appointment, call 724-224-7666.


Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Tonight in NYC: "Eddie Adams: Saigon '68"

Via DocNYC
EDDIE ADAMS: SAIGON ’68
7:45 PM, Wed. Nov. 14, 2012 - IFC Center - Buy Tickets

Expected to Attend: Douglas Sloan, Morley Safer, Bob Schieffer, Hal Buell, Bill Eppridge, James S. Robbins
 
WORLD PREMIERE “Photographs do lie,” said Eddie Adams who took one of the Vietnam War’s most arresting photos of a point-blank execution. Filmmaker Douglas Sloan (Elliott Erwitt: I Bark at Dogs) investigates this famous image, revealing the complicated back-story of Adams and Nguyen Ngoc Loan, seen in the photo pulling the trigger. Sloan will screen his 15 min short featuring interviews with Peter Arnett, Bill Eppridge, Richard Pyle, Morley Safer and Bob Schieffer; followed by a live conversation about Adams’ legacy and the questions raised by the film.

Co-presented with the International Center of Photography.

Official Site: http://Saigon68.com
 
Director:Douglas Sloan
Producer: Tania Sethi
Cinematographer: Jack Donnelly
Editor: Charly Bender
Music: Hank Aberle
Running Time: 15 min

Related: Interview with  “Saigon ’68” Director Douglas Sloan

"It quickly became obvious that the story was not about the photograph but rather is the story of perception: of how a man takes a picture, the world responds, and that response leads him to a more nuanced, truthful understanding of the power of the media, the evils of war, and the complexities of human nature — Eddie Adams’ included."

 

Friday, November 9, 2012

WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY Opens Veterans Day, Sunday, November 11, in Houston



WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston  


Admission on opening day is free to all visitors, in recognition of Veterans Day; admission remains free to active-duty military and veterans through the run of the exhibition

WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY travels nationally to Annenberg Space for Photography, Los Angeles; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, DC; and Brooklyn Museum through February 2014

Houston—September 2012—On November 11, 2012, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, debuts an unprecedented exhibition exploring the experience of war through the eyes of photographers. WAR/PHOTOGRAPHY: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath features nearly 500 objects, including photographs, books, magazines, albums and photographic equipment. The photographs were made by more than 280 photographers, from 28 nations, who have covered conflict on six continents over 165 years, from the Mexican-American War of 1846 through present-day conflicts.

Read more here.



Related:

"People don't think this war has any impact on Americans? Well here it is," Nina Berman says of the image of a somber bride staring blankly, unsmiling at the camera, her war-ravaged groom alongside her, his head down.

CNN: Classic andHistoric Portraits of War


Financial Times: War and Peace (with slide show)


NY Daily News: War photography exhibit debuts in Houston museum


 KPRC TV Houston  Exhibition showcases war photos (with video)


Houston Chronicle: "It's a subject that has deep impact, and because most of us don't experience war first-hand, photographs are our collective memory of it"
 

The New York Times: "Battlefield Images, Taking No Prisoners"


Photo District News: War Correspondence


Modern Art Notes Podcast features the new Museum of Fine Arts Houston exhibition “War Photography: Images of Armed Conflict and its Aftermath.


MFAH debuts unprecedented exhibit of war photography

Time LightBox: "War/Photography, on view from Nov. 11 to Feb. 3, is a magnificent, wide-ranging exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston"

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

AP’s Legendary Photographer’s Hong Kong Exhibition & London Memorial Oct. 18



Vietnam 1967 — AP photographer Horst Faas, with his
Leica cameras around his neck, accompanies U.S. troops in
War Zone C. (AP Photo)

Via Photo This & That

Earlier this year, May 10th, saw the sad passing of one of our time’s greatest photojournalists and picture editors; the legendary Horst Faas. Best known for his amazing images from Vietnam, Horst was a double Pulitzer Prize winner. As AP chief photographer for Southeast Asia and picture editor, he was also instrumental in getting Nick Ut’s powerful ‘Napalm Girl’ on the AP wire, along with another definitive image from that war, Eddie Adams’ Vietcong prisoner execution.


A boy carries a toy rifle as he walks with his mother past French
soldiers in battle gear at the Bastille Palace in Oran, Algeria,
May 4, 1962. Algeria’s eight-year battle for independence had
reached a tense cease-fire pending a July referendum.
 (AP Photo/Horst Faas)

The sun breaks through dense jungle foliage in early January 1965,
around the embattled town of Binh Gia, 64 km east of Saigon, as South
Vietnamese troops, joined by U.S. personnel, rest after a cold, damp
night of waiting in an ambush position for a Viet Cong attack that
didn’t come. One hour later, as the possibility of an overnight attack
faded, the troops moved out for another hot day hunting the elusive

communist guerrillas. (AP Photo/Horst Faas)

 

Exhibition

The Foreign Correspondent’s Club, Hong Kong will be have a reception and exhibition on Horst’s work on September 4th. For further details, visit the FCC website. The exhibition of images will remain on display for the foreseeable future.


Memorial

In London, on October 18th at 11.30am, we will be having a memorial service for Horst. The service will be at St Brides Church, Fleet Street.



South Vietnamese civilians, among the few survivors of two days of
heavy fighting, huddle together in the aftermath of an attack by
government troops to retake the post at Dong Xoai, June 1965.
Just a few of the several hundred civilians who sought refuge at the
post survived the two day barrage of mortars and bombardment.
After the government recaptured Dong Xoai, the bodies of 150
civilians and some 300 South Vietnamese soldiers were discovered.
(AP Photo/Horst Faas)


Monday, October 1, 2012

Worcester Art Museum exhibition features some of the most powerful and provocative American photographs of the 1960s.




 Joseph Louw, South African, about 1945-2004, The Death of Martin Luther King, Jr., Lorraine Hotel, Memphis, April 4, 1968, Gelatin silver print, gift of David Davis, 2011.148

 Iconic news photographs of 1960s on view in exhibition at Worcester Art Museum

Via artdaily.org


WORCESTER, MASS.- Worcester Art Museum announces its major fall exhibition, Kennedy to Kent State: Images of a Generation, opened September 29 and on view through February 3, 2013. The exhibition features some of the most powerful and provocative American photographs of the 1960s.

The photographs chronicle world events during the turbulent decade of the 1960s. From disturbing assassinations, the Vietnam War, antiwar protests, the thrill of space exploration, and the lightheartedness of pop culture, this exhibition represents a range of human emotion. The photographs are from the museum’s permanent collection. The photographs were originally collected by David Davis, as a way to recall and reflect his memories of the era.

The photographs also reveal the activities of news gathering and publishing in the 1960s. Many are vintage wirephotos or file photographs from newspaper and magazine archives. These were used in editing, layout, and as camera art for the creation of printing plates. In the 1990s, when news outlets transformed their imaging libraries to digital formats, these objects were discarded or released onto the market. Many of the prints were stamped or inscribed on the back with a record of each use, and in this way they reveal their own history, and carry powerful qualities as artifacts.

“The Worcester Art Museum was among the very first American museums to exhibit photographs as works of fine art,” said Matthias Waschek, director. “In 1961, coincidentally the time that the Kennedy to Kent State era began, we established a curatorial department of photography and began building a permanent collection. These holdings now represent a survey of the history of photography in the United States in its fascinating variety. To the post-Baby Boomer generations, this exhibition has the power to awaken them to the correlation between their present lives and the not-so-distant past.”

Kennedy to Kent State: Images of a Generation was organized by David Acton, curator of prints, drawings, and photographs at the Worcester Art Museum. He has organized nearly 100 exhibitions at the museum, and published extensively on Old Master, American prints and drawings, and the history of photography. Notable among his exhibition catalogues are A Spectrum of Innovation: Color in American Printmaking 1890-1960, The Stamp of Impulse: Abstract Expressionist Prints, and Photography at the Worcester Art Museum: Keeping Shadows.

“Then, as now, pictures were the medium by which most people experienced the wider world,” said Acton. “Photographs created a common experience, plotting a historical arc of embracing familiarity. Kennedy to Kent State presents a selection of these pictures, providing a glimpse of that turbulent time. Many of the images transcend reportage. In their momentary imagery, refined compositions, and humanity, they attain the stature of true works of art.”

In 2000, David Davis founded the Schoolhouse Center for Art and Design, home to the Driskel Gallery of Photography, and the Silas Kenyon Gallery of Regional Art in Provincetown, Massachusetts. When Davis acquired the famous Vietnam photographs by Nick Ut and Eddie Adams, he began his 12-year project to collect a survey of the iconic images by which Americans experienced a transformative period of their history.

“I wished to do something that I have not seen before,” said Davis, “to present a kind of storyboard of the 1960s. From the time I entered my teen years until that of my college graduation, there were assassinations, an unpopular war, a trip to the moon and the rise of the protest movement and counterculture. It was a confusing, unsettling, exciting, and ‘far out’ time to grow up.”

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

LIFE Photographer Bill Eppridge: Presidents, Politicians, and Transitions: Photographing Political Campaigns - Then & Now


Via B&H Photo

Speakers: Bill Eppridge
Event Type: Photography
Skill Level: Intermediate
 Sunday, October 14, 2012 | 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM
 
Join legendary Life magazine photojournalist Bill Eppridge as he takes a look back at the politicians and campaigns he photographed in the nineteen sixties and seventies, and talks about how the issues that were happening then are still prevalent in this country today. He will also talk about advances in the camera equipment he uses, and how he transitioned from film to digital cameras beginning in 2001. This is a unique opportunity to learn about history and political coverage from someone who experienced it with insider access.

Many people are familiar with Eppridge’s historic coverage of Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s presidential campaign, and his two books on Kennedy. Less well known and rarely seen are his photographs of President Lyndon Johnson during a campaign trip on Air Force One, and assignments covering the fear mongers of the early sixties - Governor George Wallace of Alabama during the Wisconsin presidential primary, and Robert Shelton, the grand wizard of the United Klans of America among other controversial figures of that time. He also covered both the Republican and the Democratic conventions in 1972, the year in which the Vietnam War was dividing the country and Richard Nixon was re-elected.

Eppridge believes that politics is more important than the average person realizes, and that politics shape our daily lives, from health care to farming. He will also discuss the difference in access to candidates then as opposed to now. He went to a rally for then candidate Obama in 2008 to see this himself, and will share tips for covering local political campaigns, something that almost anyone can do nowadays.

Eppridge continues to work as a photographer today and will discuss how the technological changes of the past decades have made it easier for both professionals and amateurs.

Photograph by Bill Eppridge / LIFE / © Time Inc.
Speakers
Bill Eppridge
 

Bill Eppridge is based in Connecticut where he continues to work on personal projects. He is producing books and exhibits of his recent photographs as well as work from his vast archive. He has been a working photographer for more than fifty years and has covered a wide array of subjects as diverse as the Beatles arrival in America; the Woodstock festival; heroin addicts in Needle Park; the Presidential campaign of Senator Robert F. Kennedy; the Vietnam War; Olympics; The America’s Cup; Elephant soccer in Thailand, and much more. He was a staff photographer for the original weekly Life magazine until publication ceased in 1972. He later worked for as a photographer for Sports Illustrated for nearly 30 years.

He has been awarded some of photography’s highest honors including the National Headliners Award; NPPA’s Joseph A. Sprague award; The Missouri Journalism School Honor Medal, and was the 2011 Lucie Foundation Honoree for Photojournalism.

Photograph by Adrienne Aurichio

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

NICK UT: “That young boy might be a photographer”



Via The Leica Camera Blog

 



Barely out if his teens, Nick Ut was thrust into the role of combat photographer after the untimely death of his talented brother, a noted actor and AP photojournalist. Here in his own unadorned and eloquent prose is the truly incredible story of how this young Vietnamese photojournalist fortuitously missed getting shot down in a helicopter and went on to use his beloved Leica to capture “Napalm Girl,” the most searing and influential picture of the Vietnam War, and become the youngest person ever to win the Pulitzer Prize. Nick Ut was honored with the Leica Hall of Fame Award on September 17 at “LEICA – DAS WESENTLICHE”.


Q: Can you tell us about the photo of your brother and the influence he had on you?

A: My brother was named Huynh Thanh My. He worked as an AP photographer in the Mekong Delta in 1965. He is number 7 in the family and after he died I subsequently joined the AP after the New Year in 1966.

Q: Did you want to become a photographer because of your brother?

A: Really I wanted to be a photographer very much. I learned a lot from him. Before my brother died he showed me all his Leica cameras. He used them practically every day to cover the war. This is a picture of him taken 40 years ago. It’s been many years since I’ve seen that image and this was really the first time I’ve also seen the negative.


Q: So when your brother died, a year later you joined the AP. How old were you when you joined?

A: When my brother died in 1965 in Vietnam they held a funeral and my entire family attended. They all looked at me and said, “That young boy might be a photographer.” They looked at me as I held a picture of my brother. I wasn’t sure about becoming a photographer at that point, yet my family clearly wished I would become one—even my sister in law. They said, “Nick, don’t you want to become a photographer?” And I said yes. So they said, “Maybe we should go to AP office in Saigon and see Horst and see if maybe you can get the job.” And I told my sister, “I’m not a photographer yet—I need to learn something to be in the AP. Hopefully they’ll give me a job as a photographer when I show them I’ve learned something about the AP darkroom.” Well I learned a lot about the darkroom and I also took pictures every day in Saigon with my Leica and every other camera in the AP office. I showed them my pictures and they said I was a good photographer. I told them I didn’t believe that. Then one day I showed them a picture of the destroyed abbey in Vietnam and that marks the turning point. From then on I really wanted to be photographer, and 3 or 4 months later I was an official combat photographer and I went everywhere. I was the youngest combat photographer. I never saw anyone as young as I was in that role.


Q: Not every young photographer gets to start out with a Leica either.

A: Yeah I first held a Leica when I was fifteen. My brother had a Leica and he would show it to me. I would hold the camera and want to take pictures with it. And my brother knew I really loved the Leica so when he came home we would take the camera everywhere. I wanted to learn. I wanted to shoot pictures all over my neighborhood. I would show my family the pictures. And then when I joined AP they had a camera. They told me I could pick which one I wanted and I told them I’d love to have two Leicas. Then they give me the Leica M3 and the Leica M2 and I carried them every day, everywhere. I would hide undercover till I saw something and then I would take a picture. Sometimes I would see the bombs in Saigon and I would take a picture of a lot of dead bodies and then take them back and show the AP.

Q: One thing I didn’t know was that your brother was an actor before he died.

A: Yes. My brother was very handsome. He was a Vietnamese movie star. He was very tall. All the women loved him. He became the CBS cameraman and he joined the AP in ’65.


Q: Now when you were shooting during the Vietnam War, you also got injured correct?

A: Yes, I was injured in the thigh and I was very lucky just it was only shrapnel in my leg. In the winter it hurts. But many other photographers were injured far more severely or even killed.

Q: And you had said someone saved your life while you were shooting pictures too?

A: Yes, my friend Henry, the best AP photographer in Saigon. In 1970 there was a heavy shelling in Laos, and Henry told me he wanted to take a vacation in Hong Kong. He asked if he could take the first helicopter out of Laos. Since he was a really good friend I let him take my seat, and I took another flight from Laos to Saigon. The first thing I did when I got in the office was to check on any more assignments and to see my boss Horst. He asked if I had seen Henry and I told him he had taken my seat. He told me gravely that that helicopter was shot and that everyone on it had died. And I told him that it was supposed to me that had died. Henry took my seat and got killed for me.


Q: So we’re going to talk a little bit about the big famous photo. What did you expect in Trang Bang the day that you went?

A: In year 7 of the war, I heard the story about heavy fighting in Trang Bang. Lots of people were fighting on highway one and they had locked down the highway. They were fighting like they were on the first day. So I told a friend of mine that I wanted to go there the next day in the early morning. At 7:30 the following morning I saw 1,000 victim refugees on the highway, many of them running. I took a lot of pictures of refugees running, and you could see the black smoke from the bombs all morning. I followed the 25th division away from the highway 2 miles away. When I went back to the highway I saw dead bodies everywhere. So I wanted to head back to AP Saigon because I had many pictures ready. That was when I noticed one Vietnamese soldier. He had thrown a smoke grenade, which erupted in yellow smoke. Then you could hear a jet come in and dive down and drop two bombs. Immediately there were two explosions. It was very noisy. And then a sky-rider dove and dropped napalm. And I shot the picture and it looked really good because I shot in black and white, not color. I took the picture and then everyone was running furiously; I had taken the picture before anyone had realized what happened. Then a woman carrying a baby came running. She is asking for help. Her grandson was dying and he was only a year old. I used my Leica to take a picture and the boy died right in front of my camera. Then I saw the naked girl, Kim, running and I ran inside right away. I took a lot of pictures. And when she passed me I saw a lot of her skin coming off. I knew she was going to die. I put my camera down on the highway and put water on her body right away. She told me no more water. I told her it was just drinking water. But she said in Vietnamese, “Too hot! Too hot! I think I’m dying”

She told her brother she thought she was dying also. But they kept running for another ten minutes and then I told her I wanted to help her. My friend from the BBC assisted with the water bottle. Then I borrowed a raincoat for her body since she was naked. I picked her up and put her in my car with all the children already inside the car. She kept telling me she was dying. I knew she was dying, but I wanted to take her to a good hospital. And the people at the hospital wanted to help her too. But the local hospital was too small. When I got there I showed them my media pass and said if these children die your picture will be on the front page tomorrow and you might be out of a job, and they were worried. Well, we got all the children into the hospital, but then I started worrying about my pictures. I held my camera and looked at it to see how many frames I had taken. I knew that number 7 would be a good shot. When I got to the AP office I told them I had a very important roll of film. I asked them to please help me develop it, so we went into the darkroom immediately. We developed all my pictures and after looking at the first photo they asked me why I shot a picture of a naked girl. I said no, it was the result of a napalm bomb. You can see it exploding. We made one 5 x7 print of it and waited for Horst to come back so we could show him the picture. I wound up talking all week about that picture. New York and Vietnam said good job. And that morning Horst and I went back to do a story about what had happened with the napalm. Later we saw Kim’s father running around looking for her. I told him she might be dying in a hospital. He screamed and then he took a small car to the hospital right away. I went back to the hospital and I saw her parents. Her father thanked me and said I saved his daughter’s life.


Q: You developed the film yourself. When did you know it was a special photo?

A: What happens when you shoot a picture on film is that you don’t see it until it’s developed and printed. Today with digital you can see the image right away. And I remember 40 years ago everyone worried about his pictures. So when I developed the picture and saw it I thought “Oh my God. I have a picture” and thought of my brother number 7. For many years he said he hated war. He told me hoped one day I would have a picture that would stop the war. And that picture of Kim running did stop the war. Everybody was so happy.


Q: How does it feel to have taken a photo that had so much influence?

A: I think I was mostly lucky. I was so happy I had taken that picture. Even now, almost 40 years later people are still talking about that picture.

Q: You mention the number 7 coming up a lot. Can you share the significance of that number?

A: My parents had 11 children. My brother was number 7. He was a wonderful photographer for AP in Saigon. And he always told us stories about his pictures. Every time he came home he would show the pictures to his wife and me. He showed me pictures of dead bodies of Vietnamese and American soldiers. He would say he didn’t want the war to go on. He wanted to see have pictures published on a front page somewhere to help stop the war in Vietnam. But he died in 1965 and he was only 27. He never continued with his pictures. Then when I got my job I overhear my boss say that he hoped I could take a picture that would stop the war. I did with the napalm girl. So I said yeah brother, I have a picture that will stop the war. And it was number 7 on the negatives too. That was from my brother I am sure.


Q: What film and camera did you use?

A: I shot it with a Leica M2 on 35mm color film.

Q: So what did your boss Horst say when he first saw the photo of Kim?

A: When he first saw the picture he had just come back from London. He asked who took the picture. They said it was mine. He asked me what happened in that picture. I told him napalm dropped. He went and sat at the light table by himself to look at my negative. He went to the darkroom and made 12 more prints to send to New York. He said that picture would cause trouble, and that he’d never seen a picture like this taken in Vietnam. But when he sent the picture to New York they didn’t want to use it because it was too naked. He said no I want that picture sent right away. He was yelling.


Q: So who was responsible for actually getting the photograph published?

A: Horst. He sent it to the director in NY and they made sure the picture got sent out.


Q: You broke a lot of records that day as far as being the youngest Pulitzer Prize winner and also getting a photo of a naked girl widely published. Can you tell us about these records that you broke?

A: I remember being interviewed. They asked how I felt about winning the Pulitzer Prize and I said, “I’m too young! I don’t know anything about a perfect photo.” They said I won something. They came to the office and opened champagne and said I had won the Pulitzer Prize! I said “Oh my God!” They told me I was too young to win the Pulitzer Prize. It was so exciting. The AP called me and said I was the best. Yes, I am still the youngest ever to this day.


Q: It’s been 40 years since you took that iconic picture. Can you say how much that one photo has impacted your life as a photographer?

A: At the time of the picture’s 35-year anniversary I took a picture of Paris Hilton going to jail. It was shot on the same I day I took the picture of the napalm girl. Nowadays they call me Hollywood Nick, so when I went back to the AP they told me my next assignment was to take a picture of Paris Hilton going to jail. So I went to Hollywood and I remembered that it was the same day 35 years ago when I shot the napalm picture. So then I took a picture of Paris Hilton. She was with her father and she was crying. As I fired off two frames I realized that her hair looked exactly like the girl from my photo 35 years ago. And she was crying. And CNN ran a story about the man who took a picture of the napalm girl and 35 years later took the picture of Paris Hilton going to jail.


Q: How does it feel to win the Leica Hall of Fame award?

A: I was very happy when I heard that Leica was giving me the Hall of Fame award. When they told me I said yes, I want to go there and accept the award.

Q: Is it also special for you because Horst will also be getting an award too?

A: I really wish I could call him and say, “Daddy, you come with me and see the Hall of Fame. I’m receiving a big award and you have to be there with me” and he would email me back and say “Nick, my son I’ll be there with you.” But I know I’ll never see him there because he got very ill. After he came home from the hospital and they told me he had passed away and I cried a lot. I miss him.

Q: You’ve had an amazing career. What advice would you give to young photographers that want to get into photojournalism?

A: I think young photographers today should shoot film first before getting a digital camera. I’ve seen many high school students in America in California that shoot film before getting into digital. And I think that’s a good thing. Because when you start with digital you shoot too fast. With film you have to make every picture count.

Thank you for your time, Nick!

-Leica Internet Team