Photographs are works of art that capture moments in time. They’re important because they document instances, which can later complete or create history. Looking at a photograph one is immediately intrigued. After studying the composition of the photo its meaning comes to mind, one begins to wonder why such a photo was taken. The overall meaning will have different effects depending on the viewer, but one must wonder again. Question after question enters the viewers mind until they’re entranced with a need to know the photo’s story. With this need comes an emotional connection to the photograph and the people featured in it. Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs have been some of the most iconic photos ever taken. These photos have the power to ignite a movement large enough to end a war. The Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph, The Terror of War, by Nick Ut, taken in nineteen seventy-two, reached out to a set of moral perceptions conceived by people living outside of the war, the photo remains relevant because basic moral standards remain the same within society. A photographer stands on a long concrete road a camera clutched in his hands. He raises the camera to his face and captures an unforgettable moment. Huỳnh Công Út, professionally known as Nick Ut photographed The Terror of …show more content…
Rather, the napalm that hit Kim Phuc was an intimation of national defeat, as much as a record of individual tragedy. It lashed a wound and hardened, like a scar, into certainty.” (Neer 148). Americans retreated from Vietnam in March nineteen seventy-three, the same year the photo of Kim Phuc won the Pulitzer Prize. When the Americans left so did the napalms bombs they were
A heroic, glorified opportunity to fight for the success of a nation: the common romantic misconception with respect to the true realities of war shared by society. As a fairly new artistic medium during the Civil War, photography allowed for Timothy O’Sullivan and Alexander Gardner to challenge the perception in which the public imagined acts of war by capturing an un-romanticized representation of the horrors of combat in their “Field Where General Reynolds Fell.” But, Gardner enlists artistic elements as well as a narrative caption to lessen the audience’s initial wave of shock by laying burial to the corpses that sacrificed their lives and stirring a sense of resurrection among them. “Field Where General Reynolds Fell,” figure 1, is a
In A Viet Cong Memoir, we receive excellent first hands accounts of events that unfolded in Vietnam during the Vietnam War from the author of this autobiography: Truong Nhu Tang. Truong was Vietnamese at heart, growing up in Saigon, but he studied in Paris for a time where he met and learned from the future leader Ho Chi Minh. Truong was able to learn from Ho Chi Minh’s revolutionary ideas and gain a great political perspective of the conflicts arising in Vietnam during the war. His autobiography shows the readers the perspective of the average Vietnamese citizen (especially those involved with the NLF) and the attitudes towards war with the United States. In the book, Truong exclaims that although many people may say the Americans never lost on the battlefield in Vietnam — it is irrelevant.
Eddie Adams was a photojournalist who in 1968 captured one of the most infamous photographs of the Vietnam War. In his photo, "Police Commander Nguyen Ngoc killing Vietcong Operative Nguyen Van Lem", we see the exact moment of death for a Vietcong captain. The police chief of South Vietnam had decided to execute this man for capturing and killing dozens of unarmed innocent civilians. This photo was absolutely shocking to the American public, and even won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking new photography in 1969. Even though this was a staged photo, the complete brutality and pure atrociousness of the moment showed the American public just how deep the corruption of this war ran.
Chris Hedges, a former war correspondent, has a memory overflowing with the horrors of many battlefields and the helplessness of those trapped within them. He applies this memory to write War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning, where he tutors us in the misery of war. To accomplish this goal, Hedges uses impactful imagery, appeals to other dissidents of war and classic writers, and powerful exemplification. Throughout his book, Hedges batters the readers with painful and grotesque, often first-hand, imagery from wars around the globe. He begins the book with his experience in Sarajevo, 1995.
In class, we looked at several photographs that were taken during the Vietnam War. The one that stood out, and probably had the greatest effect on its viewer, was probably Napalm Girl. This photo was taken by Huynh Cong Ut, and this photo has a powerful message behind it, that is applicable and can still affect people today. On June 8, 1972, a plane from the Vietnamese Air Force dropped one bomb on top of the Trang Bang village.
For the duration of his essay “The Stranger in the Photo is Me”, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and professor Donald M. Murray depicts his train of thought while flipping through an old family photo album. While describing his experience, Murray carries the reader through the story of his childhood, describing snapshots of some of his favorite memories growing up. Throughout the piece, he shifts back and forth between a family oriented, humorous tone and a nostalgic, regretful one and by doing so, he parallels the true experience of looking through a family photo album. Murray expresses a more serious tone while reflecting on a certain photograph of him in uniform from the beginning of World War II and goes on to explain how in his opinion,
On March 16, 1968, American soldiers invaded Vietnam resulting in roughly 350 unarmed Vietnamese deaths (Yanak, Ted, and Pam Cornelison). They demolished the village of My Lai killing and destroying anything in sight. At first, this horrific event was kept a secret, but when information was leaked, America’s character was at risk. This horrific procedure
In 2013 when Viet Thanh Nguyen began to write The Sympathizer, it had been 40 years since the Vietnam War. It had been 40 years since French and American military involvement ravaged a once beautiful countryside and littered lush forests with napalm. It had been 40 years since 2 million people were displaced from their country and left to die in the Pacific Ocean. In those 40 years, many works were published about the Vietnam War. These stories came from many, contrasting, perspectives.
In war, there is no clarity, no sense of definite, everything swirls and mixes together. In Tim O’Brien’s novel named “The Things They Carried”, the author blurs the lines between the concepts like ugliness and beauty to show how the war has the potential to blend even the most contrary concepts into one another. “How to Tell a True War Story” is a chapter where the reader encounters one of the most horrible images and the beautiful descriptions of the nature at the same time. This juxtaposition helps to heighten the blurry lines between concepts during war. War photography has the power to imprint a strong image in the reader’s mind as it captures images from an unimaginable world full of violence, fear and sometimes beauty.
In the autobiography, a Rumor of War, Philip Caputo, talks about his experience in the Vietnam War. He tells us why he joins the Marines until the day he was released from active duty. A rumor for the story about war and how it changed men like Phillip Caputo, John Kerry Silvio Burgio and Tim Carey. This paper is based on Philip Caputo and how the Vietnam War changed him through his time before the war, during the war and after the war.
Effectively, Daghett communicates that the myths spread about the humanitarianism of the Gulf War could quickly be dispelled by this single photograph. She then informs the reader about the intense restrictions placed on the press, “...by the time the Gulf War started, the Pentagon had developed access policies that drew on press restrictions used in the U.S. wars in Grenada and Panama in the 1980s.” (Daghett 3) This information greatly bolsters Daghett’s argument as it leaves the reader wondering what information and imagery has been kept from them and why? Throughout the next few paragraphs Daghett is able to prey on the reader’s sympathies, by using examples of the extreme lengths photographers went to, so as to capture the war through their lenses.
Specifically how the horrifying images brought American citizens to protest in the form of sit-ins and marches. These actions effectively pressuring the government to end the war. Therefore by shielding the public from images such as the photo first described the opportunity to possibly end the war sooner was taken away. The statement is also made that the true job of the media is not to narrate, to write a story, but to simply tell the facts free of bias. That by the media conforming to the “video-game” narrative of the war they went against their own purpose
A photograph is more than just a simple image; it tells a story. A story beyond a particular moment in time, it holds secrets and memories. The eagerness to comprise a moment in the perfect shot seems to become an obsession for many. In Kim Edwards ' novel The Memory Keeper 's Daughter, Edwards uses photography as a motif which coincides with the novel 's idea of secrets. David Henry, the antagonist of the novel, becomes fascinated with photography after choosing to give away his daughter and compresses his guilt with photography.
"The photographic image is the object itself, the object freed from the conditions of time and space that govern it. No matter how fuzzy, distorted, or discolored, no matter how lacking, in documentary value the image may be, it shares, by virtue of the very process of its be- coming, the being of the model of which it is the reproduction; it is the model." "Photography does not create eternity, as art does, it embalms time, rescuing it simply from its proper corruption. The aesthetic qualities of photography are to be sought in its power to lay bare the realities."
Just as Sontag emphasises in her essay, photography is useful tool that captures the memories, defenses against anxiety, and brings familiarity. In additional, personally I also believe that photos can empower the world by sharing