Nick Ut (Photographers)

has had a long and incredible career in photography. He has won a Pulitzer Prize for his work as well as being credited with helping to end America’s police action in Vietnam. If anyone has ever had any doubts about the power of an image, that should change their minds. The image of a naked young girl running down the road while billows of black smoke burned her village in the background launched Nick Ut into the halls of legend. The girl, Kim Phuc , was fleeing her village after it was hit with napalm on June 8, 1972.

Nick was working as a photographer for Associated Press at the time and heard there was an air-strike on a nearby village. He left to see if he could get some good images. While on the road headed there, he encountered people, many children, running away from the deadly fire that had rained from the sky. Then he encountered Kim Phuc, age 9.

He captured the horror of war and the collateral damage that is often considered in terms of math and percentages as acceptable. His image of that day and that little girl hastened the American withdrawal from Vietnam due to its effect on the people of America and the resulting pressure they placed on the political machine at that time. The photography of the time was different from what Ut captured. It was more sterile and less emotionally affective.

There is more to Nick Ut than a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph. Exactly 35 years to the day, Nick Ut captured another image that skyrocketed around the world. This time it was the distress of Paris Hilton as she was taken in a police car to serve her time in jail for a traffic violation. June 8, 2007, and the image Nick captured of Paris that day is a far cry from the war torn villages of South-East Asia, but the theme of females in distress have a commonality that cannot be denied.

While there were hundreds of paparazzi outside Hilton’s home eagerly waiting for her to emerge so they could snap away, Nick was the one who took the shot seen around the world. Surely, he did not plan the events that occurred on either day, nor was it in his designs to capture another emotional image 35 years to the day of his famous image of Kim Phuc. Nick Ut is a photojournalist. He takes pictures.

Obviously, he does more than simply ‘take pictures’. He places himself in situations that most of us do not have the ability (or inclination) to do so for ourselves. He tells stories, affects emotions, feeds our hunger for connection with the outside world, imparts a sense of ‘raw-ness’ to the events that unfold, and helps communicate ideals in a way that only images can do.

If you take the time to look at photographs before Nick’s famous shot in 1972, you will see a different style in the majority. You will see a clean, polished, distant, and sanitized version of the events that took place. After Ut’s image in ’72, the difference is dramatic. People wanted to see the real side of war, of unrest, of famous tragedy. The photographers realized that they could influence the world with raw images of the ugly side of war.

The influence of this type of photographic style is hard to minimize. The desire for images of celebrities and political figures without make-up, in embarrassing situations, and down to earth, everyday life has become a trademark for the paparazzi of our time.

While some might not lay the credit for this at Nick Ut’s feet, it would seem like an amazing coincidence that things changed at about the same time as his first image, back in 1972. Almost as amazing as capturing his second world renowned image exactly 35 years later in 2007.

While many photographers look for posed shots, reflected light, studio techniques, and post processing magic, there is something to be said for capturing the candid essence of a moment, a movement, and an intensely personal raw second to reveal the reality of life.