Eddie Adams (photographer)
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| Eddie Adams | ||
|---|---|---|
| Born | June 12, 1933 New Kensington, Pennsylvania[1] |
|
| Died | September 19, 2004 (aged 71) New York City, New York |
|
| Occupation | Photojournalism | |
| Notable credit(s) | Pulitzer Prize-winner | |
Eddie Adams (June 12, 1933 – September 19, 2004) was a Pulitzer Prize-winning American photographer noted for portraits of celebrities and politicians and as a photojournalist having covered 13 wars. He is the subject of a 2009 documentary feature, An Unlikely Weapon, directed by Susan Morgan Cooper.[2]
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[edit] Combat photographer
Adams served in the United States Marine Corps during the Korean War as a combat photographer. One of his assignments was to photograph the entire Demilitarized Zone from end to end immediately following the war. This took him over a month to complete.
[edit] Pulitzer Prize winning photograph
It was while covering the Vietnam War for the Associated Press that he took his best-known photograph – the picture of police chief General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan executing a Vietcong prisoner, Nguyễn Văn Lém, on a Saigon street, on February 1, 1968, during the opening stages of the Tet Offensive.
Adams won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography and a World Press Photo award for the photograph (captioned 'General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner in Saigon'), but would later lament its notoriety.
On Nguyen Ngoc Loan and his famous photograph, Adams wrote in Time:
| “ | The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them; but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths. ... What the photograph didn't say was, 'What would you do if you were the general at that time and place on that hot day, and you caught the so-called bad guy after he blew away one, two or three American people?'[3] | ” |
Adams later apologized in person to General Nguyen and his family for the irreparable damage it did to Loan's honor while he was alive. When Nguyen died, Adams praised him as a "hero" of a "just cause".[4]
He once said, "I would have rather been known more for the series of photographs I shot of 48 Vietnamese refugees who managed to sail to Thailand in a 30-foot boat, only to be towed back to the open seas by Thai marines." The photographs, and accompanying reports, helped persuade then President Jimmy Carter to grant the nearly 200,000 Vietnamese boat people asylum. He won the Robert Capa Gold Medal from the Overseas Press Club in 1977 for these series of photographs in his photo essay, "The Boat of No Smiles" (Published by AP) [5]. Adams remarked, "It did some good and nobody got hurt."[6]
[edit] Awards
Along with the Pulitzer, Adams also received over 500 awards, including the George Polk Award for News Photography in 1968, 1977 and 1978, and numerous awards from World Press Photo, NPPA, Sigma Delta Chi, Overseas Press Club, and many other organizations.
Adams' legacy is continued through Barnstorm: The Eddie Adams Workshop, the photography workshop he started in 1988. Adams died in New York City from complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
[edit] References
- Notes
- ^ Lucas, Dean. "Famous Pictures Magazine - Vietnam Execution". http://www.famouspictures.org/mag/index.php?title=Vietnam_Execution. Retrieved on 2007-06-01.
- ^ An Unlikely Weapon (official site)
- ^ There Are Tears in My Eyes - Eddie Adams & the Most Famous Photo of the Vietnam War, by Jonah Goldberg 1999
- ^ Image Canon - Historic Images
- ^ The OPC's Robert Capa Gold Medal
- ^ Eddie Adams. "Interview for PBS". http://www.pbs.org/speaktruthtopower/hr_eddie.htm. Retrieved on 2007-06-01.
- Bibliography
- Brady, James (2005). The Scariest Place in the World - A Marine Returns to North Korea. New York City: Thomas Dunne Books. ISBN 0-31233-243-2.
[edit] External links
- Voice autobiography of his Pulitzer photograph, the execution
- Interview for PBS
- Eddie Adams Photographs
- Eddie Adams obituary
- Eddie Adams Workshop
| Persondata | |
|---|---|
| NAME | Adams, Eddie |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | |
| SHORT DESCRIPTION | United States Marine |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 12, 1933 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | New Kensington, Pennsylvania |
| DATE OF DEATH | September 19, 2004 |
| PLACE OF DEATH | New York City, New York |
