{"id":7230,"date":"2022-05-02T09:48:10","date_gmt":"2022-05-02T13:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=7230"},"modified":"2025-08-23T17:44:16","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T21:44:16","slug":"the-peril-behind-a-pulitzer-through-a-human-lens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2022\/05\/02\/the-peril-behind-a-pulitzer-through-a-human-lens\/","title":{"rendered":"The Peril Behind a Pulitzer: Through a Human Lens"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The human condition is a perilous, glorious, double-edged sword. Photojournalists across the world capture the human spirit through the powerful attention of their lens. Their work evokes a depth of understanding and emotion that precede major stories. These images stand the test of time in print and in human hearts and minds.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cIf it makes you laugh. If it makes you cry. It\u2019s a good photo. You look at a film and you see it and it\u2019s over and it goes on the shelf. But a 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 -Eddie Adams.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Photojournalism is frontline work. By nature, the work requires getting out ahead of the story. Anticipating. Wondering. Don Bartletti said, \u201cThere\u2019s just something about this business that can catapult you to the highest sense of being or purpose. But when you miss it. They say you\u2019re only as good as your last picture.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bartletti 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\u2019s 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0William 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\u2019s 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.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s not a photography contest.\u00a0 It\u2019s about telling some of the biggest stories of the year.\u201d -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 \u201cbeautiful\u201d 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Another 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In 1986, Michel DuCille and Carol Guzy caught the aftermath of a mudslide in Amero, Columbia. \u201cYou rage inside at the helplessness. To try to deal with it, you seek out elements of humanity and courage.\u201d -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\u2019s 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.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Walking, hiking through mud, debris and bodies was a traumatic experience. Guzy\u2019s 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.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Journalism is a position of great honor and power. Whether behind the lens of a camera or in front of it, it\u2019s about capturing life in motion. The photojournalists in \u201cA Glimpse of Life\u201d 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\u2019t tell a story… they capture it in action.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The human condition is a perilous, glorious, double-edged sword. Photojournalists across the world capture the human spirit through the powerful attention of their lens. Their work evokes a depth of understanding and emotion that precede major stories. These images stand the test of time in print and in human hearts and minds.\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u201cIf it makes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":171,"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-7230","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\/7230","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\/171"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7230"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7230\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8130,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7230\/revisions\/8130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7230"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7230"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7230"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}