Friday, August 21, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Historic Photography Stories. Nguyen Ngoc Loan
The story of Nguyen Ngoc Loan, the Saigon Police Chief who became infamous around the world at age 37 as a result of the direct execution of a Viet Cong officer in 1968.
Photo by Eddie Adams:
After some editing, framing and going through the hands of a skilled publisher, Adams’ photo went on to become the 1968 feature at the World Press Photo photography contest. Adams received a Pulitzer Prize for it in 1969 (but denied it afterwards). The photo’s background is additionally blurred for an increased sense of tragedy.
Parts of the image were blocked off with masks and hands during photo projection. The rest became lighter thanks to the additional light falling there. That’s pretty much why Photoshop’s light and shadow tools still have icons depicting an oval mask on a wire frame with a hand nearby.
The photo also featured a soldier running in from the right, but that part is usually cut off.
The victim’s identity was never entirely recovered. Most sources state that it was one Nguyen Vam Lem, claimed as husband by eight different Vietnamese women. One of those women got a stroke of luck when Japanese TV producers decided to air a show introducing her story, resulting in the Japanese government providing her with living space at the state’s expense.
Adams himself worried much over how the seeming entirety of western liberal society went up in arms against Loan for the act. Later on he would go on to tell Time magazine, “The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation.” Adams meant that the photo was taken out of context, meaning that had he known about it earlier, he would not have published it at all. Despite that however, it isn’t likely that he would’ve had much of a chance to convince the NBC cameraman Vo Suu to hide the tape anyway.
A video of the photographed moment:
Adams’ photo became a symbol of the cruelty of the Vietnamese war to everyone. The image of an unyielding general blowing out a flimsy but stout fellow countryman’s brains in bright day light. Loan held his Police Chief position for many years; even Time magazine described him as a man capable of cleaning up his city a few years before the incident and later published claims freeing him of blame, arguing that the victim in the photo had killed several people just before as well.
General Loan suffered a leg wound in battle several months after the execution and was sent to be operated on in Australia.
Right after receiving the wound, May 5th 1968:
The Australians were shocked by the presence of a murderer in their country and forced him to leave, resulting in his operation being done in Washington. Loan returned to Saigon, only to escape on a fortunately encountered plane and end up in America once more.
Loan settled down in Dale City, Virginia. There he opened a pizza parlor named Les Trois Continents (French for “The Three Continents”). In 1991, locals found out who the owner of the pizza parlor was and wrote “We know who you are” on the walls in his restroom, forcing the now reasonably aged Loan to close his shop. In the end, Loan contracted cancer and passed away in 1998 at 68 years of age.
Adams told Time magazine, “I keep in touch with him. We spoke last over a year ago last when he was seriously ill. I sent flowers with a card that read, ‘I'm sorry. There are tears in my eyes.’”
Eddie Adams at the Vietnam conflict and during his later years:
Photo by Eddie Adams:
After some editing, framing and going through the hands of a skilled publisher, Adams’ photo went on to become the 1968 feature at the World Press Photo photography contest. Adams received a Pulitzer Prize for it in 1969 (but denied it afterwards). The photo’s background is additionally blurred for an increased sense of tragedy.
Parts of the image were blocked off with masks and hands during photo projection. The rest became lighter thanks to the additional light falling there. That’s pretty much why Photoshop’s light and shadow tools still have icons depicting an oval mask on a wire frame with a hand nearby.
The photo also featured a soldier running in from the right, but that part is usually cut off.
The victim’s identity was never entirely recovered. Most sources state that it was one Nguyen Vam Lem, claimed as husband by eight different Vietnamese women. One of those women got a stroke of luck when Japanese TV producers decided to air a show introducing her story, resulting in the Japanese government providing her with living space at the state’s expense.
Adams himself worried much over how the seeming entirety of western liberal society went up in arms against Loan for the act. Later on he would go on to tell Time magazine, “The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation.” Adams meant that the photo was taken out of context, meaning that had he known about it earlier, he would not have published it at all. Despite that however, it isn’t likely that he would’ve had much of a chance to convince the NBC cameraman Vo Suu to hide the tape anyway.
A video of the photographed moment:
Adams’ photo became a symbol of the cruelty of the Vietnamese war to everyone. The image of an unyielding general blowing out a flimsy but stout fellow countryman’s brains in bright day light. Loan held his Police Chief position for many years; even Time magazine described him as a man capable of cleaning up his city a few years before the incident and later published claims freeing him of blame, arguing that the victim in the photo had killed several people just before as well.
General Loan suffered a leg wound in battle several months after the execution and was sent to be operated on in Australia.
Right after receiving the wound, May 5th 1968:
The Australians were shocked by the presence of a murderer in their country and forced him to leave, resulting in his operation being done in Washington. Loan returned to Saigon, only to escape on a fortunately encountered plane and end up in America once more.
Loan settled down in Dale City, Virginia. There he opened a pizza parlor named Les Trois Continents (French for “The Three Continents”). In 1991, locals found out who the owner of the pizza parlor was and wrote “We know who you are” on the walls in his restroom, forcing the now reasonably aged Loan to close his shop. In the end, Loan contracted cancer and passed away in 1998 at 68 years of age.
Adams told Time magazine, “I keep in touch with him. We spoke last over a year ago last when he was seriously ill. I sent flowers with a card that read, ‘I'm sorry. There are tears in my eyes.’”
Eddie Adams at the Vietnam conflict and during his later years:
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