# Pulitzer prize photos



## Graeme (Jul 21, 2007)

I was impressed with* syscom3*'s thread on the 'Napalm Girl', Kim Phuc, and the associated Pulitzer prize photo. I'm hoping to start a long thread showing many of these award winning photos and the stories behind them. Please contribute. 

In no particular order I'm starting with 'The Vulture and the Baby' of 1994.





Taken by Kevin Carter in the Sudan. Stopping in Ayod he was photographing horrific scenes of starving people and came across this little girl making her way to a feeding station. At that moment, a vulture landed nearby, sensing carrion. Carter snapped some photos and chased the bird away.
Carter's friends later reported that he was depressed after making the picture, but the poignant image touched a global nerve. In March, the New York Times, seeking a photo from Sudan, used Carter's gut-wrenching picture. It was quickly picked up by others and widely published internationally; it soon became a worldwide icon of African suffering. 
Personal tragedies followed Carter and there was stinging criticism of his photo. Some believed that it was a fluke or that he had somehow set it up. Others described him as the vulture for taking the photograph.
On the night of July 28, 1994, shortly after being presented with the Pulitzer award Carter committed suicide in Johannesburg. The explanatory note he left behind told of a man frustrated by lack of money and haunted by the unrelenting memories of killings, madmen with guns, starving children, of corpses and pain. He was 33 years old.


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## evangilder (Jul 21, 2007)

"haunted by the unrelenting memories of killings, madmen with guns, starving children, of corpses and pain" 

I think there are a few of us here that have been there. It drives some insane, others it kills inside. While he indeed took a very telling photograph, it ultimately cost him his life. But anyone who has actually been to Africa and seen what is going on there is changed forever.


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## evangilder (Jul 21, 2007)

Ramadi - U.S. Marines pay their respects at a memorial service for 1st Marine Division Combat Photographer Cpl. William Salazar, 26, at Camp Blue Diamond. Salazar, of Las Vegas, Nev., was killed in action in Anbar Province. (Photo by Jim MacMillan, October 18, 2004.)

The say a picture is worth a thousand words, this one speaks volumes...


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## Graeme (Jul 21, 2007)

Taken by Virgina Schau-May 3 1953. Pitt River Bridge, over Lake Shasta. 
A professional photographer would say that it was the wrong camera, the wrong lens, and the wrong film, but those same professionals would also admit the importance of being at the right place at the right time-with any camera.
It was taken with a Brownie camera.
And yes, he survived.


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## syscom3 (Jul 21, 2007)

I started the thread of the picture of the napalm girl!


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## Graeme (Jul 21, 2007)

syscom3 said:


> I started the thread of the picture of the napalm girl!



My apologies! Fixed!


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## syscom3 (Jul 21, 2007)

1975

On July 22, 1975, photograph Stanley J. Forman working for the Boston Herald American newspaper when a police scanner picked up an emergency: “Fire on Marlborough Street!”
Climbed on a the fire truck, Forman shot the picture of a young woman, Diana Bryant, and a very young girl, Tiare Jones when they fell helplessly. Diana Bryant was pronounced dead at the scene. The young girl lived. Despite a heroic effort, the fireman who tried to grab them had been just seconds away from saving the lives of both.

Photo coverage from the tragic event garnered Stanley Forman a Pulitzer Prize. But more important, his work paved the way for Boston and other states to mandate tougher fire safety codes.


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## evangilder (Jul 22, 2007)

"A professional photographer would say that it was the wrong camera, the wrong lens, and the wrong film, but those same professionals would also admit the importance of being at the right place at the right time-with any camera."

If it won a Pulitzer Prize, and the photo stirs emotion, who cares what gear was used. The second part is probably the key, being in the right place at the right time.


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## v2 (Jul 22, 2007)

Slava Veder's “Burst of Joy.” 1974

Coming Home


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## syscom3 (Jul 22, 2007)

Great one V2!


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## Graeme (Jul 23, 2007)

Having performed CPR on people in various locations I can empathise with pole linesman Jimmy Thompson's dilemma.
Fellow linesman Randall Champion suffered a 21,000 Volt shock while working to restore power in a Jacksonville suburb July 17 1967. The current burnt through his feet and knocked him from the pole, his harness holding him inverted. Thompson reached him first and commenced CPR. Champion survived. 
The photo was captured by Rocco Morabito working for the Jacksonville (Florida) Journal.

"Back at the _Journal_, Morabito processed his film. It was a little past the deadline, but the editor said he would hold it for the photo. Printed big on the front page, it was a positive photo that showed one human saving another, in stark contrast to the coverage of the Vietnam war, civil rights issues, and demonstrations in the streets that readers so often faced during the era." 
'Moments'-Hal Buell


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## lastwarrior (Jul 23, 2007)

He is a real hero.


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## syscom3 (Jul 23, 2007)

I remember that picture. They showed us that in Jr High school when we had "shop" classes. The dangers of electricity and why we need to learn CPR.


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## Thorlifter (Jul 23, 2007)

Wow, that's a cool shot. I haven't seen that one before.


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## ccheese (Jul 23, 2007)

You have to go a long way to beat this shot by Joe Rosenthal. No other
explanation is needed.

Charles


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## Graeme (Jul 24, 2007)




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## ToughOmbre (Jul 24, 2007)

ccheese said:


> You have to go a long way to beat this shot by Joe Rosenthal. No other
> explanation is needed.
> 
> Charles



The picture you attached looks like a reenactment. Where is it from?

Here's the original...


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## ccheese (Jul 24, 2007)

My pic was taken from the Wikipedia web site. I think the only difference is
one has be 'colorized'. It's still a winner.....

Charles


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## ToughOmbre (Jul 24, 2007)

ccheese said:


> My pic was taken from the Wikipedia web site.  I think the only difference is
> one has be 'colorized'. It's still a winner.....
> 
> Charles



Definitely still a winner...but I got it figured out... It's a color still photograph from the movie, "Flags of our Fathers".


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## Graeme (Jul 28, 2007)

It's good to see survivors. Taken by Bill Crouch (1949?) at the Oakland Airport in front of 60,000 spectators at an air show on a Sunday October afternoon. Chet Derdy was at the controls of his stunt plane and was just finishing his aerobatic routine. Derby's performance was to culminate in this hottest stunt. Trailing smoke from his agile biplane, he would do an upside-down loop-the-loop leaving large smoky circles in the sky.
The *plan* was that one minute *after* his performance, three B-29 bombers were to appear in formation and make a high speed pass at full power.

They arrived early.

Derby, upside down, didn't see them coming. It's reported he missed the bomber's wing by five feet.


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## ccheese (Jul 28, 2007)

In the first photo posted by Graeme, Ira Hayes is sitting on the far left.
Mike, Ira, Doc Bradley and Franklin are in this photo, but Ira is the only 
one I can identify.

Charles


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## ToughOmbre (Jul 28, 2007)

Identifying the Iwo Jima flag raisers

From the left, by color...

*red* = Private First Class Ira H. Hayes

*magenta* = Private First Class Franklin R. Sousley

*Brown* = Sergeant Michael Strank

*Aqua* = Private First Class Rene A. Gagnon

*Green* = Pharmacist's Mate Second Class John H. Bradley

*Yellow* = Corporal Harlon H. Block


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## Graeme (Jul 28, 2007)

This B-26 crashed while returning to Mitchell Air Force Base on November 2 1955. Miraculously no one on the ground was killed or injured. A miracle because it crashed in the middle of the Long Island community of East Meadows, in a street called Barbara Drive. Some of residents saw the plane approaching and were able to gather their children and run in what they hoped would be the right direction. It missed the Meadowbrook Hospital by 500 feet, landing in the front yard of the home of Paul Koroluck. One B-26 motor was deposited on Koroluck's lawn, another was in his doorway. Koroluck was at work at the time and his wife was away with their five-year-old daughter. 

It was photographed by George Mattson, a photographer for _The New York Daily News_, who was in the air at the time and noticed a pillar of smoke in the distance. Approaching closer this is the devastation that he found.

The B-26 pilot and his sergeant died in the crash.


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## Njaco (Aug 1, 2007)

And this one...
AP photographer Eddie Adams won a Pulitzer Prize in 1969 for a photograph showing Lt. Col. Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a prisoner. It was an image that defined Eddie Adams' career.But fame -- instant, enduring and discomforting -- resulted from a single photo taken Feb. 1, 1968, the second day of the communists' Tet Offensive, in the embattled streets of Cholon, Saigon's Chinese quarter.

Drawn by gunfire, Mr. Adams and an NBC film crew watched South Vietnamese soldiers bring a handcuffed Viet Cong captive to a street corner, where they assumed he would be interrogated. Instead, South Vietnam's police chief, Lt. Col. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, strode up, wordlessly drew a pistol and shot the man in the head.

Mr. Adams caught the instant of death in a photo that made front pages worldwide. It would become one of the Vietnam's War's most indelible images, shocking the American public and used by critics to dispute official claims that the war was being won.

In later years, Mr. Adams found himself so defined and haunted by the picture that he would not display it at his studio. He also felt it unfairly maligned Loan, who lived in Virginia after the war and died in 1998.

"Sometimes a picture can be misleading because it does not tell the whole story," Mr. Adams said in an interview for a 1972 AP photo book. "I don't say what he did was right, but he was fighting a war and he was up against some pretty bad people."


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## Graeme (Aug 1, 2007)

Good post Njaco.



> He also felt it unfairly maligned Loan, who lived in Virginia after the war and died in 1998.



Adams once visited Loan's restaurant, went to the bathroom, and saw inscribed on the wall "We know who you are."

At the time of the shooting loan walked up to Adams and said "They killed many of my people, and yours, too". Adams comments, "And that's all he said. He just walked away." Loan told Adams that his wife said he was foolish not to confiscate the film. But Loan never criticized Adams for the picture saying that if he hadn't taken it, someone else would have.

Moments before...





and after...


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## Njaco (Aug 1, 2007)

There was also video that I've seen.

And another photographer that couldn't handle the situation to a degree. This affects more than just the camera subjects sometimes.


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## Njaco (Aug 2, 2007)

William C. Beall, like Joe Rosenthal, was a combat photographer during World War II. Yet it was years later that he won the Pulitzer Prize for a photograph entirely different from the one of the flag raised on Iwo Jima. 

While working for the Washington Daily News, William Beall was assigned to cover the Chinese Merchants Association parade on September 10, 1957. It hardly seemed like the kind of event that would produce the most-applauded photograph ever to appear in the Washington Daily News. 

While keeping his eye on the parade, Beall saw a small boy step into the street, attracted by a dancing Chinese lion. A tall young policeman stepped in front of the boy, cautioning him to step back from the busy street. 

According to Beall, “I suddenly saw the picture, turned and clicked.” The result was a moment of childhood innocence frozen in time.

One bit of info was that Bill Beall was on Iwo Jima at the time the famous flag raising photo was taken and was in the same marine photography outfit as Joe Rosenthal, he just happened to go to the other side of the island that day. 

One thing often missed was that the young spit polish policeman went on to become the Chief of Police of Washington DC, Maurice Cullinane.

There is also a statue in front of a courthouse, in Jonesboro, Georgia, honoring policeman that is taken from the photo.


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## syscom3 (Aug 2, 2007)

That picture is a great one!


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## Graeme (Aug 2, 2007)

June 1947. Fifteen year old Ed Bancroft is holding Bill Ronan, of the same age, hostage with a pistol in a Boston alleyway.
Two officers had routinely stopped Bancroft and questioned him about a robbery that had occurred earlier. He immediately pulled out a pistol, shot one of the officers in the arm and fled into a nearby alley, where he grabbed Ronan. Both ends of the alley were quickly blocked off by the police and Bancroft threatened to kill Ronan if they advanced.

'Meanwhile'..Frank Cushing, a photographer for the _Boston Herald_ had managed to position himself in a house, opposite the alley, and take the photo.

While Bancroft was figuring out his next move, a policeman managed to work his way along on the opposite side of the fence. At the right moment, he stood up behind Bancroft, reached over the fence, and stunned him with the butt of his gun. Situation defused.

As it turned out Bancroft had nothing to do with the robbery which the officers had originally questioned him about.

Cushing's photograph was remarkable because at a time when hostage situations were rare, his photograph showed one actually underway. In addition, the limited lens capabilities of the Speed Graphic, the usual camera of the press photographer, meant that cameramen had to be close to their subjects, which is generally not possible in a hostage situation. Cushing's ingenuity and persistence paid off and resulted in an extraordinary picture.


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## comiso90 (Aug 2, 2007)

great thread... thanks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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## Graeme (Aug 3, 2007)

Njaco said:


> There was also video that I've seen.



I didn't know a film of the event existed, until I read this in Stanley Karnow's book, Vietnam-A History, page 542;

"At the "five o'clock funnies," as correspondents in Saigon called the regular afternoons briefings held in the U.S. information service auditorium, Westmoreland exuded his usual confidence. But his report was smothered the next morning in America's newspapers, whose front pages featured the grisly photograph of Loan executing the Vietcong captive. And the next morning, NBC broadcast its exclusive film of the event-slightly edited, to spare television viewers the spurt of blood coming from the prisoner's head."


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## Njaco (Aug 3, 2007)

The video was extremely graphic. That spurt of blood line was so correct. Nothing like that is neat and clean.


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## Konigstiger205 (Aug 3, 2007)

I don't know if the second one did actually won a Pulitzer prize but its a very striking photo and the first one doesn't need any description...


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## comiso90 (Aug 3, 2007)

Konigstiger205 said:


> I don't know if the second one did actually won a Pulitzer prize but its a very striking photo and the first one doesn't need any description...



I think I read something about this photo occurring days after the surrender and staged for the media... just like the same claims were made about the iwo jima photo.

but it is an iconic photo what ever the case is


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## Gnomey (Aug 3, 2007)

comiso90 said:


> I think I read something about this photo occurring days after the surrender and staged for the media... just like the same claims were made about the iwo jima photo.
> 
> but it is an iconic photo what ever the case is



It was staged the day after as when they first did it, it was too dark for the camera (or so I have read).

All the same, all the photos in this thread are great and a few are iconic (Iwo Jima/Vietnam execution).


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## STARMAN 352ND (Aug 22, 2011)

You got that right... I grew up with this man and he taught me everything i need to know about flying.
It was such a lost when he passed away back in 2006 at the age of 92. But i am thankful to have him a member of my family.
I thought i post a another picture for you.


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