Most Memorable Photos - Part V

James Nachtwey [1992]

This picture was taken in Somalia during the famine. DD featured endless documentaries in those days about the famine, which then seemed to be at a far off place. This picture shows a mother lifting the body of her dead son to carry him to a mass grave for burial. The picture won Nachtwey the World Press Award for 1992. Nachtwey then worked for Magnum, and won 2 awards within 3 years, and later started his own company, VII.

Source: wikipedia, jamesnachtwey.com

Pablo Bartholomew [1984]

This picture is perhaps the icon of grief and greed in the face of modern industrialization at India. The poisonous gas (Methyl Isocynate) leakage at Bhopal's Union Carbide plant, caused the death of this infant, amongst many others. Bartholomew won the World Press Photograph in 1984.

Source: wikipedia, worldpressphoto.org

Mustafa Bozdemir [1983]

This picture was taken during the devastating earthquake in Turkey during 1983. Bozdemir witnessed this woman embracing her dead children while her screams pierced his heart and said it seemed like she thought her love could will them back to life.

Source: worldpressphoto.org, bbc.co.uk

Eddie Adams [1968]

This picture is from the Vietnam war, during 1968. Adams was covering the war for Associated press when he took this picture of police chief General Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Vietcong prisoner, Nguyen Van Lem, on a Saigon street, on February 1, 1968, during the opening stages of the Tet Offensive. Adams won the Pulitzer for this picture in 1969.

Adams later said: The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera.

Source: wikipedia

Most Memorable Photos - IV

John Filo [1970]

May 4, 1970 has become a day forever etched into American history. On that day, four Kent State University students were killed and nine students were wounded by National Guardsmen who were called onto the campus in response to protests and demonstrations against the Vietnam War. John Filo was a senior at Kent State working in the student photography lab when the shots rang out just after noon on that day. During the confrontation and ensuing chaos, he photographed a then 14-year-old runaway named Mary Vecchio as she kneeled over the bleeding body of Jeffrey Miller. Filo received the Pulitzer for his photograph while still a student at Kent State.

The photograph in Time-Life library was at some point airbrushed to remove the pole behind Mary, thus raising a storm of controversy about modified pictures in journalism.
Source: cnn.com, wikipedia

Malcolm Browne [1963]

Thích Quảng Ðức, was a Vietnamese Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon intersection on June 11, 1963. Thích Quảng Ðức was protesting the persecution of Buddhism by South Vietnam's Ngô Đình Diệm administration. The photographer Malcolm W. Browne went on to win the 1963 World Press Photo of the Year for this image. Another reporter that witnessed the event, David Halberstam, remembers "As he burned he never moved a muscle, never uttered a sound".This reminds me of the attempted self immolation by Rajeev Goswami which was front page picture in India Today and others.
Source: wikipedia

Raveendran [1990]

Rajiv Goswami (d. 2004) was a native of India, was notable for his attempted self-immolation while a student at Delhi University in 1990. His action, held in protest against the Prime Minister V.P. Singh's implementation of the Mandal commission's affirmative action recommendations, allegedly inspired a series of self-immolations by other college students and led to a movement against job reservations for Backward Castes in India. He finally gave up politics and started his own business. He continued to suffer from health problems until he died at the age of 33.

It was reported that V.P. Singh instructed Safdarjung hospital that he was not to die under any circumstances. The overdose of medication caused him to suffer kidney and liver problems, to which he succumbed later in 2004. He never took a government job and relied for sustenance on his parents who lived abroad.
Source: wikipedia, hindu, in.rediff, timesofindia, outlookindia

Most Memorable Photos - Part III

William C. Bealle [1958]

So, someone recently commented that I’ve posted pictures depicting only the darker side of humanity. Here is something to lighten things up. This picture taken by Bealle of Washington (D.C) Daily News, shows a policeman patiently reasoning with a 2 year old boy trying to cross the street during a parade. The picture titled “Faith and Confidence”, won the Pulitzer for photography in 1958.

Source: Pulitzer.org