Nick Ut
Website - http://www.immf.org/author/nick-ut/
Nick Ut, whose real name is Ut Cong Huynh, was born in Vietnam. His oldest brother, My Thanh Huynh, was an AP photographer who was killed in combat in 1965. Nick Ut began his career as a photographer with the AP in Saigon in 1966 and covered the rest of the war. There were many close calls for Nick while covering the war. When the Americans and South Vietnamese invaded Cambodia in 1970, he was wounded three times. The highlight of Nick’s career came on a rainy day on June 8 1972 when he photographed nine year old Kim Phuc, running and screaming down Route 1 naked. It was near Trang Bang village in Vietnam, after a misdirected napalm bomb was dropped on her family home by a South Vietnamese plane. Seventy five per cent of her body was scorched with third degree burns. Nick captured the little girl on film and then rushed her to a hospital, which saved her life. The shot which seared the world’s conscience became the scream heard around the globe and won every major photographic award in 1973; the Pulitzer Prize, World Press Photo, Sigma Delta Chi, George Polk Memorial Award, Overseas Press Club, National Press Club. Along with that the picture was the choice of the 20th century. The picture remains perhaps the most graphic and memorable image of the Vietnam War.
'Napalm Girl'
Anyone with any interest in history or photography will know the image. It’s a photograph that grabs you and never leaves you once you’ve seen it. The image taken by AP’s Nick Ut on June 8th, 1972, shows crying children running away from their village after a Napalm aerial attack by South Vietnamese Forces.
It’s a disturbing image; one that shakes us to our core. The main subject in the shot is nine year old Kim Phuc; running, wailing the words “Too hot, too hot”, crying and naked. As she was hit by the burning Napalm, it raced up her body and incinerated her clothing on contact. It burnt through the layers of her skin all over her back, leaving her heavily scarred to this day.
This moment brought together photographer and subject, not only to create the most powerful image from the Vietnam war but it also united a nine year old girl who would certainly have died, with her saviour; the young 21 year old Vietnamese photographer, Nick Ut. He drove Phuc to a small hospital, where he was told the small girl was too far gone to save. He showed them his American press badge and demanded the doctors treat the girl and left, assuring them that the girl would not be forgotten. “I cried when I saw her running,” said Ut. “If I don’t help her — if something happened and she died — I think I’d kill myself after that.”
Over 40 years have passed since AP’s most iconic image was taken, and Nick Ut, who won a Pulitzer Prize for the image, is very much a full time AP staff photographer, now based in LA. In August this year, Nick visited the AP offices in NY to see his original negatives for the third time ever, since having processed it in the darkroom in Vietnam.
Kevin Carter
In March 1993, photographer Kevin Carter made a trip to southern Sudan, where he took now iconic photo of a vulture preying upon an emaciated Sudanese toddler near the village of Ayod. Carter said he waited about 20 minutes, hoping that the vulture would spread its wings. It didn't. Carter snapped the haunting photograph and chased the vulture away. (The parents of the girl were busy taking food from the same UN plane Carter took to Ayod)
The photograph was sold to The New York Times where it appeared for the first time on March 26, 1993. Practically overnight hundreds of people contacted the newspaper to ask whether the child had survived, leading the newspaper to run a special editor's note saying the girl had enough strength to walk away from the vulture, but that her ultimate fate was unknown. On April 2, 1994 Nancy Buirski, a foreign New York Times picture editor, phoned Carter to inform him he had been awarded with the most coveted prize for photojournalism; the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography.
As with many dramatic photographs, Carter came under criticism for this shot. He was blamed for just photographing - and not helping - the little girl. The St. Petersburg Times in Florida wrote: "The man adjusting his lens to take just the right frame of her suffering, might just as well be a predator, another vulture on the scene". The attitude that public opinion condemned was not only that of taking the picture instead of chasing the vulture immediately away, but also the fact that he did not help the girl afterwards - as carter explained later - leaving her in such a weak condition to continue to march by herself towards the feeding centre. Carter committed suicide two years after receiving the Pulitzer Prize.
1.a by Alice-Anne Bull
1.b by Alice-Anne Bull
Re-evaluate
Pictures are worth 1,000 words – in the newspaper business that equals about 25 inches of print. Images are one of the most powerful forms of communication, especially in journalism. One image or sound can summarize an event or person or motivate a nation; one image can upset people more than endless pages of print on the subject.
1.c by Alice-Anne Bull
Initial Ideas
For my assignment, I first of all wanted to do it connected to my radio work, making it based entirely on Rock music, unfortunately i couldn't come up with a way of expressing this idea through photojournalism.
After a lot more thinking I've come up with the idea of doing the assignment based entirely on travel and tourism, I've got two 'get aways' booked, one to Barcelona and the other to Salzburg so I will take the opportunity to get my photos in each of these destination.
I've had a look at travel photographer Michel Figuet, whose work is exceptionally interesting. Figuet specialises in taking photos of landscapes, lifestyle and travel, I really like his work, his landscapes are the sort that I would like to capture at my locations for my assignment.
I've had a look at travel photographer Michel Figuet, whose work is exceptionally interesting. Figuet specialises in taking photos of landscapes, lifestyle and travel, I really like his work, his landscapes are the sort that I would like to capture at my locations for my assignment.
When I think of travel and tourism, I think of busy streets, beaches, blue seas and skies and planes. The photos I intend to definitely get is the view from the plane as it's in the air
Pitch
Location 1 - Barcelona:
For my first set of photos I plan to capture the views and tourist attractions in Barcelona, for example; the beach. Barcelona is viewed as a sunny and warm place so I want to get my photos with clear blue skies - the weather may be an issue, I'll have to research into whether Barcelona is a sunny climate in mid October. Another thing I plan to capture are the attractions such as the Zoo and a classic holiday scene - a sunset.
Location 2 - London:
London is full of top tourists attractions, i'd like to capture a few of them, such as; big ben, the London eye and Trafalgar square - all these locations are always full of tourists. I would also like to get a few shots of London once the sun has gone down to get a feel of all the lights which help to make London a top tourist location.
Location 3 - Salzburg:
For my final shoot I plan to travel to Salzburg to capture what it truly looks and feels like in the winter. I want to get photos of the christmas markets and the views from the castle looking out to the Alps. Salzburg is known for its skiing, unfortunately I won't be capturing that side of it as it wasn't my intention too. I want to get the feel of christmas there and the culture.
Equipment List
I'll be shooting photos on a Nikon D3200 on a tripod so I get a better exposer. My editing will be done by using one of adobes software, Photoshop CS6, I will shoot all my photos raw so I have more control of colour editing. I would also like to try maybe merging photos together in Photoshop and also using different effects on my photos.
Supporting images
Supporting images
Michel Figuet
Michel learned with top photographers Jean-Loup Sieff, Peter Lindbergh, Sebastiao Salgado and Sarah Moon while in charge of processing at the famous B&W lab imaginoir, which he co-founded. He has been published internationally in Vogue, Elle, Optimum, L'Officiel, Marie-Claire, Premiere and AD, and has worked with brands like Paul Smith, Karl Lagerfeld, Valentino, Gucci, Etam, Air France, Virgin, Universal and sony. His pictures have been published in books, shown in galleries, and sold at Sotheby's.
Michel Figuet has written articles on travel inspiration for the Conde Nast Traveller magazine, his most recent was an article on 'Three Unique Escapes for the Adventure Traveller' back in February 2012.
Some of Michel's work:
Shoot #1
My first shooting date has been booked and I will be flying out to Barcelona on the 04/10/2014 till the 06/10/2014, I plan to go to each of my locations and carry out my plans from my initial ideas. I've checked the weather and its expected to be sunny and very hot, this will be great for my photos as a sunny landscape is what I'm after for my photos in this location.
Photos from shoot 1 -
I headed down to Passeig de Colom at approximately 10:15 to get my first lot of photos, the weather was great with lots of sun and temperatures of 27 degrees, perfect weather for my photos. The aim of taking photos here was to capture the tourism, both Passeig de Colom and Rambla dels Caputxins are streets full of tourists due to their vast souvenir stalls and entertainment at both morning and night. About noon I visited Barcelona Zoo, this is one of Barcelona's top attractions, I didn't use any effects for my photos such as monochrome because I wanted to capture the vibrant colours of Barcelona, both day and night.
On my second day in Barcelona I decided to take photos of the beach to capture another reason to visit Barcelona. Once again the weather was great, even as the sun went down. I wanted my photos to capture the true colour of Barcelona so I didn't adding any effects, especially by the marina, I wanted the sea and sky to be a lovely shade of blue. My 4th to 6th photo was aimed at capturing the sunset, I think these images came out well, they show some of the amazing colours the sky turns at sunset.
Edits
I made this image having art as my main intention, I wanted the image to look like it was infact painted. The picture was taken down one of Barcelona's most cultural and artistic streets. To get the artistic effect on my image I used the 'Dust and Scratches' tab to make the image look windswept and distorted.
For my second shoot I headed up to Central London to capture some of London's top locations, such as; Big Ben, the London Eye, Trafalgar Square and a few others. That morning I checked the weather to see if the conditions would be manageable, according to the BBC there would be a traces sun but also rain, so I took my chances. Clearly this breaches my health and safety, but I ensure all my equipment was covered so it wouldn't get broken. My aim was to get into London for 2:00pm as the sun would be setting at 17:49 and I wanted most of my images to be taken at night.
Photos from shoot 2 -
Edits:
I made this edit by using the Camera Raw Filter effect, I used this effect to enhance the shadows in the picture. The titles I used are a quote by Vivienne Westwood, I liked what she said as it shines a light on London compared to the rest of the world.
Shoot #3
My third shooting date has been booked and I will be flying off to Salzburg, Austria on the 14/12/2014 till the 16/12/2014. According to BBC weather, while I'm there its supposed to snow, I like the idea of this as it would make my images, I think look amazing as it's around the Christmas period and it shows the main features of Salzburg - that they do actually get snow in winter making it a top skiing location as its surrounded by the French alps.
Photos from shoot 3 -
I was very happy with the photos I took in Salzburg, I wasn't very happy with the fact that it didn't actually snow though, apart from this I think the shoot went well. I went to numerous amounts of tourist locations, for example the Fortress Hohensalzburg. Over the 2 days being there I aimed to capture some of Salzburg's top tourist locations and its amazing views.
Edits
For this image I pretty much left most of it untouched, my main focus was to enhance the brightness of the lights to make them look more eye-catching. I also enhanced the shadows so the lights stood out more against the writing, the effect I used was the Camera Raw Filter.
The idea behind this image came from the fact that this image was taken on the Love Lock Bridge in Salzburg, I looked up how to say 'I love you' in German and thought it would be a nice touch to add it to the image along with the ID logo.
For this image I didn't really do much editing for it, I made the plane black and white but left the background the same. I was going to change the colour of the sky but I didn't think it looked any good. For the titles I researched into travel quotes and found 'You don't need magic...' which I really liked as it sounds inspiring.
Evaluation
When I first set out doing my photojournalism assignment, at first I was very confused as to what subject to do it on. My first choice of subject was to do it on rock music as it would tie into my radio documentary; I came up with the idea to follow a friend's band around taking photos of them to capture their lifestyle and hobby. After a little while I realised that I couldn't use this as my subject because of their other commitments. It took a few weeks to come up with another idea but I finally chose to do a travel and tourism magazine as I was going to Barcelona and Salzburg at the end of 2014 so I took the opportunity to take my photos of the location and used them in my assignment.
I think my images were approapriate for my assignment, if I could have changed anything though I would have gone to more locations in each country I went to so I could get more photos that would be used for my assignment. For my audience feedback I think I should have put more of the photos on to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. I got some good feedback though from people I showed my images too, most people liked the picture looking out of the plane window because of the change in colour of the sky which is definitely the main reason why I used it for my travel magazine.
After a year of doing photography I would say that I still don't feel that it's one of my strong skills, personally I think I'm pretty rubbish at it still. I think after a bit more practice with the cameras I could get a bit better but I know photography will never be one of my strong points. Overall, forgetting my skills in photography, I think my images came out okay and they fit into my subject well for the assignment and I'm happy with some of the edits I did.
I think my images were approapriate for my assignment, if I could have changed anything though I would have gone to more locations in each country I went to so I could get more photos that would be used for my assignment. For my audience feedback I think I should have put more of the photos on to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter. I got some good feedback though from people I showed my images too, most people liked the picture looking out of the plane window because of the change in colour of the sky which is definitely the main reason why I used it for my travel magazine.
After a year of doing photography I would say that I still don't feel that it's one of my strong skills, personally I think I'm pretty rubbish at it still. I think after a bit more practice with the cameras I could get a bit better but I know photography will never be one of my strong points. Overall, forgetting my skills in photography, I think my images came out okay and they fit into my subject well for the assignment and I'm happy with some of the edits I did.
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