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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums"A single photo can change the world. I know, because I took one that did."
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Alyssa Rosenberg
@AlyssaRosenberg
You've almost certainly seen the photo of Kim Phuc running down the road, naked and burned, after a napalm strike in Vietnam. But you may not know what happened after, or about the lifelong friendship between Kim and Nick Ut, who took that picture.
washingtonpost.com
Opinion | A single photo can change the world. I know, because I took one that did.
Fifty years ago, I took a photo of Kim Phuc after she'd been burned. Then I took her to the hospital. Today, we are still friends.
6:42 AM · Jun 2, 2022
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/06/02/nick-ut-vietnam-war-photo-kim-phuc/
No paywall
https://archive.ph/UI7Ja
Can a photograph help end a war?
Pictures from Ukraine by combat photographers, including contract photographer James Nachtwey and Associated Press photojournalists Felipe Dana, Mstyslav Chernov and Evgeniy Maloletka, have brought to light the horrific consequences of Russias invasion and the unconscionable treatment of innocent civilians.
Fifty years ago, I was in the same position as those photographers, working for the Associated Press in Vietnam.
I was inspired to become a photojournalist by my brother, who worked at the AP before I did, and whose mentor was the great Horst Faas. My brother taught me how to use cameras. Before he died covering a battle, he told me: I hope one day you have a picture that stops the war.
Horst strongly objected when I decided to follow in my brothers footsteps. He said he did not want to have to call my mother to say that a second son had died. I told him that I understood the risk and that it was my choice.
I was inspired by my brothers belief that photography can serve the cause of social justice, but I didnt know if one photo could have the power he suggested. Today, many credit my photo Napalm Girl for hastening an end to the Vietnam War. What I know for sure is that it depicts the absolute horrors of war defined by a young girl running naked amid destruction and death.
*snip*
Karadeniz
(22,267 posts)to fulfill a humanitarian role.
BumRushDaShow
(127,270 posts)and what she was doing now. Also there was this PBS interview that was probably posted on DU too -
captain queeg
(10,035 posts)I adopted a son from Vietnam. Surprisingly I didnt feel much resentment when I was there towards Americans. I think a lot of guys who served over there have regrets. I used to take my son with me to meetings, he was always in motion climbing up on me and anything else around. There was a guy there whod been with the marines early during the war. He always seemed to look fondly at my son. I think he felt like at least some good had come from the war. Certainly the bad outweighed the good. The warmongers never think of how the civilian population suffers.
calimary
(80,693 posts)Hes the nicest guy! So unassuming. Got along with everybody.
I remember covering Cybill Shepherd getting her star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. I covered entertainment so there I was. And there was a moment when I glanced down and noticed Nick Ut, crouched down on the pavement, shooting photos of the event, right in front of me, literally under the red velvet rope line. And I was blown away by the very idea. Heres THE guy. THAT guy. THAT guy who shot THAT photo. He won a Pulitzer Prize for it.
And yet, there he was, crouched down under the red rope, getting the shots, like he had done over his long of Cybill Shepherd getting her star on the Walk of Fame. Blew my mind.
Mosby
(16,158 posts)Last edited Thu Jun 2, 2022, 03:18 PM - Edit history (1)
https://rarehistoricalphotos.com/vulture-little-girl/did this change anything or did she just die.
the photographer killed himself later.
utopian
(1,091 posts)Hear her essay here:
https://thisibelieve.org/essay/44965/
Another Jackalope
(112 posts)Nick retired from AP in 2017. He did not kill himself.
Kim Phuc became a Canadian citizen in 1997, and now lives near Toronto.
Mosby
(16,158 posts)He could have helped her, but instead he took an award winning pic.
Another Jackalope
(112 posts)and survived for another 14 years.
Kevin Carter, the photographer, left the following as portions of his suicide note:
There is a lot of unsupportable pain in being a PJ in war-torn regions, with the constant, nagging dilemma of when to shoot and when to help.
Skittles
(152,964 posts)I'll never understand people who believe in a "higher power"
JI7
(89,172 posts)are also the ones that think we could have won that war if not for the liberals. And hate the protestors .
Hekate
(90,189 posts)That photo changed us.
As I began to read your post, those memories ran in parallel with the events of today. Not in Ukraine, but in the US. At DU weve been wrestling with the question: is it time for Americans to be shown the photos of our own dead and maimed children?
I think it may be time.
Nevilledog
(50,659 posts)Animations of kids getting shot with these weapons of war.
Nay
(12,051 posts)dai13sy
(298 posts)I've seen pictures of the aftermath in a city, a neighborhood. They are not pretty and people need to see them. Especially the parents of any age child need to see the horror left behind when some a--h--- with an AR-15 walks into a school and decides little kids look better dead. Wake up people!!! And I do own guns and they are registered!!
llmart
(15,499 posts)I had posted something on one of the threads about the massacre saying I thought the public should see pictures of what happens. One DU'er took me to task for it. So that night I was thinking about gory photos I had seen over my adult lifetime and then I thought about the nightly news clips of my classmates in Viet Nam blown to smithereens. Then this picture came to mind. These pictures moved us younger people to protest that war and helped to end it. My sister worked at a hospital during that war. She was with the Red Cross. I spent a week visiting her when I was 18. She mostly dealt with those that had mental problems from being there. I did spend five days with her at work and saw many young men my age missing limbs and eyes, etc. It's not something I'll ever forget. There's also the photo of the dead Kent State student and the anguish on the face of his classmate.
You can read or hear all the descriptions in the world, but actually seeing it with your own eyes sears it into your mind forever.
Lonestarblue
(9,874 posts)Families are dealing with grief and trauma, but Im reminded of the bravery of Emmet Tills mother in choosing to show the world what white supremacists had done to her fourteen year old child. By not showing the ravages of gun violence, the media has sanitized mass murder. Of course, no family should be forced to share such photos and childrens faces could be blurred, but people need to see what their support of military weapons in private hands causes.
The media seems too careful to appease Republicans these days that I doubt any of them even ask for permission to publish. The media wasnt even allowed to be at Andrews Air base to record dead soldiers in coffins being returned to the US.n
Paper Roses
(7,468 posts)Family members served, one received a Silver Star. He did two tours and flew MedEvac helicopters. To this day, he has not spoken to any of the family about the horrors of Vietnam.
I am thankful all family members came home. Over 54,000 did not...there are no words.
Will the world ever learn ?
Warpy
(110,900 posts)When that picture came out, we started rubbing the noses of our parents and their friends right into it.
Slowly but surely, that war became unpopular with the people who counted, the ones who controlled most of the money.
The nightly news drumbeat of firefights and body counts hadn't done it. The picture of one burned child did.
ETA: maybe what we need today is one brave family who will show the damage a semiauto gun did to the body of their dead child.
The Jungle 1
(4,552 posts)I know I did not process the image.
My country was going to send me there. I graduated in 74. The war ended in 74.
spike jones
(1,654 posts)One Planet One People.
[link:|
Another Jackalope
(112 posts)became iconic and were instrumental in ending the war, IMO.
TygrBright
(20,733 posts)I remember my stomach rolling and thinking "I'm glad I'm in a doctor's office they will know how to help me if I vomit or faint."
I remember looking at the corpses of elders and children lying heaped on a road, the burnt-out homes, the ditches with bodies in them.
At the time, I didn't think about the decisions that TIME editor must have been faced with.
But I am glad that editor made the decisions he did.
"Every one that does evil hates the light." John 3:20
sadly,
Bright