This photo was taken during the Vietnam War in 1972, and most people refer to the girl featured as the “Napalm girl.’ The girl’s real name is Phan Thi Kim Phuc and was 9 years old at the time.
This photo was taken after a napalm bomb was dropped on Trang Bang, Vietnam.
The photographer was Nick Ut who photographed for the Associated Press. Before sending in his film, he took Kim Phuc to the hospital.
He won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for his spread of photographs showing Vietnamese children fleeing from the napalm bomb.
Although nudity at the time was a no-no, the AP ran the photo after being deemed newsworthy.
I think this photograph is powerful, because it shows innocent children being affected by war. This photograph is full of emotion, and the fact Ut took the girl to the hospital before sending his photos on the wire means he is a real human that cares for others, and not just about the money.
This photograph known as ‘Saigon Execution’ is of South Vietnamese Major General Nguyen Ngoc Loan firing his pistol into the head of a prisoner on February 1, 1968.
The victim was named Nguyen Van Lem and was the lead assassin of the Viet Cong death squad. Lem was said to have been the killer of one of Loan’s senior officers and his family.
Eddie Adams was the photographer and took this during the opening stages of the Tet Offensive.
Adams won the Pulitzer Prize for this photograph in 1969.
The photograph of the ‘Saigon Execution’ is still controversial whether or not it was the correct thing for Loan to have done with a prisoner of war.
I chose this photograph, because it is a powerful image. It tells several different stories, and the truth is not known until further research has been done. This image was a symbol of Vietnam War brutality, and was said to have helped end the war overall.
The Vietnam War was such an uncensored part of history in terms of images and a huge revolution for photojournalism.
