Images of tragedy, celebration, immigration, natural disaster, violence, compassion, refugees, the old and the young, death and life are found among Pulitzer Prize winning photos. These photos tell stories without any words. “Everything has a story about it, you just have to be able to see it,” Jerry Gay said in “The Pulitzer Photographs: A Glimpse of Life”
Reading an account of the mudslides in Colombia in 1986 might stir up sympathy for a moment. Seeing Michel duCille and Carol Guzy’s image of an arm, reaching as if swimming, while the rest of the body remains trapped under mud and dirt and grime, however, leaves the viewer without an escape. The image cannot be unseen. The mind’s eye will continue to see the image long after it is gone. Guzy discussed the rage and helplessness she felt and said, “I would seek out those moments of humanity and courage.” The photos of the Colombian mudslide in 1986 show those moments and also moments of misery and destruction. It is a story that could never be told with only words.
The American flag has been the subject of Pulitzer Prize photographs for decades. The pride of victory is impossible to miss in photos of Olympic athletes posing with the American flag. Both prize-winning photos, “The Flag Being Raised in Iwo Jima” and “The Soiling of Old Glory,” arouse strong emotions. They capture, as Guzy said, “that moment in time that does touch people.”
The 1993 Pulitzer Prize Winners in Spot News Photography, Ken Geiger and William Snyder of The Dallas Morning News, told the story of the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona through their photos. They depict triumphant celebrations and crushing defeats. One photograph shows Olympic runner, Gwen Torrence, with her head tilted back and her mouth open in a victory cry clutching the American flag after taking the gold medal in the Women’s 200. Her dark brown skin glows in her red, white and blue uniform while her jet-black hair falls behind her shoulders. Words could not capture her joy in that moment.
Another Pulitzer Prize winning photographer, Hal Stoelzle of The Orange County Register, captured Rowdy Gaines celebrating with spectators after winning a gold medal swimming in the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. The American flag is the centerpiece of the photo, hanging in front of the grandstand. Fans are reaching down for a chance to clasp hands with the gold medalist. Gaines is reaching upward, his messy blond hair shining in the light. His stretch towards them is evident in the way his warm-up jacket pulls up revealing his lightly tanned sides. The U.S.A logo is on the spectators’ shirts as well as the back of Gaines’ jacket–squarely in the center of the photo. The celebration of the moment would be hard to understand from the written word alone.
“Raising the Flag on Iwo Jima” is one of the most recognized Pulitzer Prize winning photographs. Six men raised the American flag on Mount Suribachi during World War II. In the black and white photo, the sky behind them shows a few stray clouds. The men appear to be alone on top of a pile of rubble. It is a statement of conquest, a show of superiority. The United States of America was here, and we will continue to overcome the enemy. People across the world saw the photo on magazine covers and newspapers. In the United States, it was reprinted on posters and used to raise money in war bond drives. In 1954, Joe Rosenthal’s photo would be used to create the United States Marine Corps War Memorial. Words alone could not have inspired patriotism throughout the United States in the same way.
Thirty years later, a flag raised in Boston inspires something very different. John White says that photo journalists have a “front seat to history, every day we get a front seat to history.” “The Soiling of Old Glory,” taken on April 5, 1976, is, like most Pulitzer photographs, an example of that front seat. The American flag waves close to the ground as an angry white teen, Joseph Rakes, threatens a black man with the sharp point of its pole. Rakes, a high school student was, according to “Smithsonian Magazine”, angry about the busing proposal. Rakes was forced to go to a different school and felt he was losing half his friends. Photographer Stanley Forman captures the hateful mob as they meet up with Ted Landmark. Landmark was a 29-year-old Yale-educated attorney in Boston at the time.
A mass of white demonstrators provides the backdrop of the photo. Landmark, the sole person of color, is off balance after suffering an attack from behind. Rakes is lunging toward him holding the flagpole parallel to the ground. It appears to be moments away from the decorative point finding its mark in Landmarks stomach. Rakes’ face holds an expression of violence and determination. Landmark seems to be unaware of the imminent danger while he tries to regain balance and wretch his arm away from the white man behind him.
There is a unique potential given to photojournalists. As Stan Grossfeld said, “If I care about something, I can make half a million people care about it.” Forman took viewers to that moment when a black man was about to be beaten. Forman gave viewers the opportunity to care. He showed anyone who cared to see that for some, the flag is not an image of the land of the free and the home of the brave, but a weapon used against them. There are no words that could affect viewers the way that that photo does.
Pulitzer Prize winning photographs are visual reminders, as John White says, that a baby crying in Chicago is no different from a baby crying in Afghanistan. Photographs can show glimpses of life. Glimpses of love.
William Snyder says, “It’s not a photography contest. It’s the Pulitzer. It’s about telling the biggest stories of the year.” Some years, that story is about a flag raised in victor. Some years it is a flag raised in violence. But, always, it is a story that cannot be told with words alone.
