Bartletti was a Pulitzer Prize winner from a series of photos he took in 2003 depicting Honduran freight train migration. One of his iconic photos depicts a blurred moving train, awash in color. What stands out is the fresh, bright orange proffered by Mexicans to the Central American migrants thundering by. The majority of them are children who have ventured over 1,500 miles to reach safety. The hands. The speed. The photo is profound. Bartletti knows migration to be a misunderstood event. Even despite the fact that it has happened since the beginning of time. It’s likely to always be there. His photos capture the reality. During the film he talks about capturing the story swiftly. Branches flying overhead, lying flat against the roof of the train. His images are a story in themselves.
William Snyder has won three Pulitzers for his work covering natural disaster, capturing the lives of Romanian orphans and the Summer Olympic Games in Barcelona. His photographs chronicle Romanian orphans in 1991 after the fall of the Ceausescu government, which had raised the birth rate coercively. The black and white images are bleak and astonishing. It’s a warehouse. The walls are bare. The rooms contain only beds or cribs. The faces of children of various ages stare at or away from the camera lens. A female overseer in a starchy white uniform cradles one child to her shoulder. Another child drinks from an upended cup in her right hand, closest to the photographer. The conditions and the emotional state of these children touches the human soul.
“It’s not a photography contest. It’s about telling some of the biggest stories of the year.” -William Snyder. Snyder hits the nail on the head. His photos are Pulitzer Prize winners because he set out to capture human stories and human emotion. His pictures tell a story. They are not “beautiful” in a traditional sense. They are beautiful because they capture life in motion. They freeze a moment in time that cannot or should not be forgotten. They highlight courage, vitality and resilience.
Another prominent journalist, Nick Ut, caught the intense and heartbreaking photos of a napalm bomb dropped near Saigon, Vietnam, in 1973. The photo is black and white. Children run in terror from the village followed by South Vietnamese forces. In their midst, 9-year-old Kim Phuc stands out stark naked against the dark backdrop. The bomb is an ominous, inky expanse in their wake. The photos capture the shock and severity of war unfolding for Vietnamese civilians. His work changed photojournalism. His excellence at capturing events in real time will not ever be forgotten.
In 1986, Michel DuCille and Carol Guzy caught the aftermath of a mudslide in Amero, Columbia. “You rage inside at the helplessness. To try to deal with it, you seek out elements of humanity and courage.” -Carol Guzy. Guzy exposes a key element here. Photojournalists capture these photos, but they are also helplessly involved in crises. The photo has vivid color. An arm protrudes from a mountain of debris and mud, reaching futilely. Another photo contrasts murky ochre waters pooling just underneath a small girl’s chin. She is surrounded by utter disaster. The gentle hands of another human are wrapped around her swollen, dirty wrist. Her body is stuck under water for over 72 hours. Her eyes are swollen and red. Rescuers were not able to extract her from this position.
Walking, hiking through mud, debris and bodies was a traumatic experience. Guzy’s eye for humanity adjacent to her own rage and helplessness is what captured powerful images in the wake of utter disaster. The pictures taken reveal the story at its very heart. The human condition is always a driving factor in bringing news to the world.
Journalism is a position of great honor and power. Whether behind the lens of a camera or in front of it, it’s about capturing life in motion. The photojournalists in “A Glimpse of Life” highlight the crucial aspect of capturing a complex story from a real, provocative angle. There are always stories that must be told. They should be told with clarity. Above all else, they should depict human character in all of its forms. Pulitzer Prize winners don’t tell a story… they capture it in action.
