22 7 March 2020 I http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk I subscribe 0330 333 1113
NICK UT
N
ick Ut needs no
introduction to anyone
with an interest
in documentary
photography, or the often-traumatic
history of the 20th century. Even
if his name is not as familiar as it
used to be, his image of screaming
Vietnamese children running from
a napalm attack in 1972 can never
The man
who shot
‘Napalm
Girl’
Nick Ut, one of the most famous
photographers of the Vietnam war,
looks back on his dramatic and storied
career with Geoff Harris
be forgotten. Nor should it be. Few
photographs have helped to change
history, but ‘Napalm Girl’ definitely
did. While the Vietnam war had
generated lots of shocking images
before, including the summary
execution of a Viet Cong suspect in
downtown Saigon and the My Lai
massacre, its publication finally
exploded the ‘bright shining lie’ thatthe US had weighed in to somehow
save the South Vietnamese
population from communism. How
could the US claim it was saving
anyone when its weaponry was
being used to burn local kids alive,
and here was the photograph to
prove it.
Ut’s image soon became a
touchstone for international outrage
about the war, and won the Pulitzer
Prize in 1973, the same year as the
Paris Peace Accord was signed
between the US, the US-backed
South Vietnamese regime and the
communist north. Two years later
the South Vietnamese government
fell and the country was unified
under communist rule. Along withLeft: Journalists
photograph a body
in the Saigon area
in early 1968,
during the Tet
Offensive