{"id":6627,"date":"2021-04-09T09:52:09","date_gmt":"2021-04-09T13:52:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=6627"},"modified":"2025-08-23T19:05:34","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T23:05:34","slug":"reflections-on-a-glimpse-of-life-the-pulitzer-photographs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2021\/04\/09\/reflections-on-a-glimpse-of-life-the-pulitzer-photographs\/","title":{"rendered":"Reflections on \u201cA Glimpse of Life: The Pulitzer Photographs\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cA Glimpse of Life: The Pulitzer Photographs\u201d is a show and tell of why. Why do the winning photojournalists do what they do? Why does it matter? What compels any photojournalists to snap that distinguished photo?<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Photojournalists are compelled to capture that split second in time that no human eye, video or story can capture and freeze in time in quite the same way. A picture can stand alone and speak volumes, but it also has the potential to create curiosity and motivate action. All photojournalists know that seeing is believing.\u00a0 Their photos bring life to words. A story no longer relies on the eyes of a writer. You see it for yourself through the lens of their camera. The photo becomes personal to and for the viewer.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A photo becomes worthy of a Pulitzer Prize when it can\u2019t be ignored. There is something about it that distinguishes it from others. It is an image that has become a standard of understanding. It may be a photo of an ordinary person that causes us to pause and share a common experience. It may be a photo depicting someone or something, though far removed from the view, that shows exactly what it was like for that split second. More than showing us, it challenges us to feel.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Some Pulitzer Prize photos compel you to share a common experience with photo\u2019s subject or the person next to you. Regardless of personal opinions about a subject, a photo is evidence of the human experience. It allows a step into someone else\u2019s experience.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Pulitzer Prize photo\u2019s story is a little like the story told of the little boy throwing starfish back into the sea. He was asked, \u201cWhy bother? You can\u2019t make a difference. There are too many.\u201d His response, \u201cIt makes a difference to that one.\u201d The photo shows the \u201cthat one.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Some Pulitzer Prize photos draw the viewer to stare in shock, horror or disbelief at something it\u2019s easier to not see. They teach. They remind. Others make us smile or celebrate.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Watching the video of the soldiers raising the flag at Iwo Jima and freeze into the iconic Joe Rosenthal 1945 photo, it was easy to see how the photo captured the attention of Americans. Against the backdrop of a gray and cloudy sky, the soldiers work together to raise Old Glory to fly high with the rubble of war beneath their feet. One soldier\u2019s job is to keep the pole firmly planted as the others lift a partially furled flag up and toward him. They are uniformed with their helmets on, and it takes careful examination to count six men. One can imagine that that is the way these men would want it \u2013 not to see individuals but, instead, the band of brothers.\u00a0 \u201cSomething about that still moment in time\u2026touches people.\u201d \u2013Carol Guzy. Americans saw the flag penetrate Japanese soil and tasted victory.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Iwo Jima.<\/p><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0America was still reeling from the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy two days prior when Bob Jackson took his own shot that won a Pulitzer Prize. Dressed in black, Lee Harvey Oswald is the shortest person in the photo. He is handcuffed to a man in a light suit wearing a light brimmed, high-crowned hat that makes him appear to be the tallest man in the photo. The contrast between the two men is more pronounced by their reactions to Jack Ruby\u2019s shot. Oswald is hunched toward the tall man with his right hand covering his heart.\u00a0 The tall man is leaning away from Ruby. Oswald\u2019s eyes are closed, but his mouth is open. The camera captures Oswald\u2019s split second of recognition of being shot. The tall man looks at Ruby almost scowling, as though trying to assess the situation. Ruby appears slightly twisted and hunched with his back to the camera. One man may be aware of something, but the body language and facial expressions of the rest of the men register no reaction. The photographer has captured the precise second that Ruby shot Oswald. Oswald\u2019s death robbed the American people of\u00a0 time to direct their feelings of loss and anger at Oswald. The opportunity to know what happened the day the president died was gone. \u201cIt\u2019s not a photography contest. It\u2019s about telling some of the biggest stories of the year.\u201d –William Snyder<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s impossible to forget the 1973 photo of the young, naked girl running from her napalmed village. The scene is horrific. Five children are running with armed soldiers behind them. A boy of around 10 is leading with terror and fear apparent on his face. The young, naked girl runs behind him. Another older girl holds the hand of a little boy, while another smaller child looks back at the smoke on the horizon. There is more to know about the naked girl\u2019s story. Her village was napalmed by friendly fire by the South Vietnamese. She was burned over 30 percent of her body, but the photographer, Nick Ut, took her to an American hospital where her life was saved. This photo and the brutal photo of an execution in the streets of Saigon challenged Americans\u2019 sensibilities with the stark truth. The war ended that year. \u201c\u2026a still picture is in front of you all the time\u2026. The most powerful weapon that we have in the world is a still photograph.\u201d \u2013Eddie Adams<\/span><\/p>\n

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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cEveryone has a story. And we sing their song. If we don\u2019t do it \u2013 if the journalist doesn\u2019t do it \u2013 who\u2019s going to do it.?\u201d \u2013John White. John White and Skeeter Hagler\u2019s 1982 photos sing those songs.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Hagler\u2019s photos portray the stuff that Country Western music is made of. In one of them, three cowboys are sprawled out in the back of a beat-up pickup truck. The two in the front look like bookends, each with one knee bent to prop the other leg on. The cowboy hat dangling off the toe of a boot brings a smile. Hagler\u2019s photos can speak alone but together as a photo essay with an accompanying story, you feel the spirit of the quintessential old-fashion cowboy.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0What needs to be said about John White\u2019s photos? Most need no words. They are of recognizable, everyday people. Imagine encountering the man in the white lab coat perched on top of the tall ladder tending to the dinosaur\u2019s teeth. He is there, doing his job and perhaps even calling his dinosaur by name.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0William Snyder won the 1991 Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the Home Hospital for Irrecoverable Children — warehouses for children. The photos reveal crowded rooms and a lack of caregivers.\u00a0 The children visually suffer from malnutrition. Their faces and postures speak of lost hope and lost laughter. In one picture, the viewer sees a metal bed with the paint chipping off. Its lumpy mattress is too small for the bed, yet a young girl is huddled with her head down in the corner of it. If she moves slightly, she will fall through. Her face can\u2019t be fully seen but her eyes are closed. Her arm is thin. No one is in the bed and two cribs that box her in. It makes the viewer realize that it is probably daytime. Is she sick? Is she sad? Maybe, she doesn\u2019t feel anything anymore. Certainly not what a child should feel. \u201cIt\u2019s an honor to be a journalist. If I care about something, I can make half a million people care.\u201d\u00a0 –Stan Grossfeld<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Two years later, Snyder went from covering subhuman conditions where children barely existed to coverage of the Olympics in Barcelona with Ken Geiger. The pictures now capture laughter and hope where excellence can be realized and rewarded. Unlike the barbed wire of the Romanian orphanage, barriers are broken. The human spirit and body achieve with hope and strong muscles. The euphoric Nigerian team hugs unlike the solitary girl in the bed in Romania who has no one to comfort her. There is joy and relief on the team\u2019s faces and in their body language as they lean in for a group hug.\u00a0 \u201cGet out ahead of it. Anticipate.\u201d \u2013William Snyder<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When Eddie Adams took that Saigon execution shot, he confessed that he didn\u2019t think anything of it. He had a job to do to chronicle an unpopular war. Only after, when the shot was frozen in time for the world to see, was he also able to see the impact of that photo.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Photojournalists are compelled to get that one distinguished shot to teach and inform. They hit nerves and touch emotions.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Michel du Cille and Carol Guzy won the Pulitzer Prize for their photos of the devastation caused by a 1985 eruption of Nevado del Ruiz volcano in Columbia. The photos that they published required physical and emotional stamina. They are gut-wrenching pictures. Guzy said, \u201cSometime I would just rage inside seeing the helplessness. Just to be able to deal with this I would seek out those moments of humanity and courage.\u201d And that\u2019s what photojournalists do: they seek out the stories that must be frozen so that our eyes can really see.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cA Glimpse of Life: The Pulitzer Photographs\u201d is a show and tell of why. Why do the winning photojournalists do what they do? Why does it matter? What compels any photojournalists to snap that distinguished photo? \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Photojournalists are compelled to capture that split second in time that no human eye, video or story can capture […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":258,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6627","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6627","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/258"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6627"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6627\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8276,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6627\/revisions\/8276"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6627"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6627"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6627"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}