Nick Út

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Nick Út with a journalist in front of the LBJ Library & Museum , April 2016

Nick Út , actually Huynh Cong Út (born March 29, 1951 in Long An ) is a Vietnamese - American photographer . In 1972, as a war reporter in Vietnam, he took a photo ( The Terror of War ) showing Vietnamese children fleeing from an erroneous South Vietnamese napalm attack . This photo is considered a media icon and made the photographer world famous. Nick Út now lives in Los Angeles ; he works as a photo reporter for the Associated Press agency .

The photo

Nick Út worked as a photo reporter for the Associated Press (AP) in the Vietnam War . On June 8, 1972, he was on his way to the village of Trảng Bàng with a group of journalists . He later describes the scene in an interview as follows:

Peter Gail AP takes Agent Út Golden Eye Award 1973 by Ivo Samkalden counter

“When we [the reporters] moved closer to the village we saw the first people running. I thought 'Oh my God' when I suddenly saw a woman with her leg badly burned by napalm. Then came a woman carrying a baby, who died, then another woman carrying a small child with its skin coming off. When I took a picture of them I heard a child screaming and saw that young girl who pulled off all her burning clothes. "

“As we [the reporters] approached the village, we saw the first people running. I just thought 'oh god' when I saw a woman whose legs were badly burned from napalm. Then came a woman with a baby that was dying, then another woman with a small child whose skin was in tatters. When I took a picture of her, I heard a child scream and saw the little girl ripping off her burning clothes. "

- quoted from Horst Faas, Marianne Fulton : The Surviver

Nick Út then took the photo of nine-year-old Phan Thị Kim Phúc fleeing their village with other children immediately after the napalm attack. Immediately afterwards he drove the child to the hospital in his car. Horst Faas, as the head of the AP office in Saigon at the time , made sure that the photo was published despite some concerns of his employees about the inclusion of a naked girl.

In this context it is worth noting that there are two versions of the image. The well-known American photographer David Burnett can be seen on the right of the complete picture , who is currently changing his film. Later the right part of the picture was cut away.

Pulitzer Prize

The photo was voted Press Photo of the Year 1972 , and a year later Út received the Pulitzer Prize . As a result, the picture appeared on the front pages of almost all daily newspapers and contributed to a not to be underestimated extent to the discussion about the legitimacy and approach of the US troops in Southeast Asia.

today

After the end of the war, he fled to the USA, where he became an American citizen.

Exactly 35 years after the napalm attack, on June 8, 2007, he was the only one of hundreds of photographers to take a picture of the crying Paris Hilton , who had to go to jail for a few days for being drunk behind the wheel.

literature

Movie

  • Marc Wiese : The girl and the photo. Germany, documentary, 2009, 53 min. (After taking the picture of the friendly fire at entire families, the photographer takes the girl to the nearest hospital. Days later - when the photo has long been world famous - Kim Phúc becomes part of other journalists taken to a special clinic for burns in Saigon. Without the publication she would have died. She, after 17 operations, her mother and the photographer are interviewed in the film, among other things. There are not only photographs, but also film recordings of the scene.)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sven Felix Kellerhoff : The whole story about the photo of the napalm girl. welt.de, March 7, 2013.
  2. ↑ Jonathan Stock : She wants to live. In: Der Spiegel No. 38 of September 12, 2015, p. 56.
personal data
SURNAME Út, Nick
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Út, Huynh Cong
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Vietnamese-American photographer
DATE OF BIRTH March 29, 1951
PLACE OF BIRTH Long on