An exhibition in Milan pays tribute to photographer Nick Ut, author of the image that became an icon of the horrors of the Vietnam War
It all started with a bang. Nick Ut, a photographer for the Associated Press agency, was informed by a source that on June 8, 1972, the South Vietnamese army would bomb the city of Trang Bang, occupied by the communist guerrillas of the Viet Cong. win the war. war. Along with other colleagues, this Vietnamese reporter, who picked up the camera at the age of 16 to replace his older brother, who died in the conflict, spent about three hours documenting the horrors left behind by the bombing in Trang Bang. One of Ut’s photographs, known as “The Napalm Girl,” which won her the Pulitzer Prize the following year, would go down in photojournalism history and become an icon of the disasters of war.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the creation of that image, an exhibition opens its doors to the public this Friday at the Lombardy Palace in Milan, the seat of government of this region of northern Italy, describing Ut’s professional career through of 61 photos . Entitled ‘From Hell to Hollywood’, the exhibition spans from the Vietnam War to his later work in the United States, where he emigrated in 1975. Ut and Kim Phuc, the youngest of the 9-year-old ‘The Napalm Girl’ star and who now lives in Canada, where she has had two children after escaping Vietnam and living in Cuba for a while.
“My story is just that of one of those millions of children who suffered during the war. The difference was made by the photographer, who witnessed what happened and then left his machine to take me to the hospital. I owe him everything,” says Phuc, who had to undergo 17 operations to get rid of the injuries. When she came home after 14 months in the hospital, she first came across the photo of Ut, already an international icon. “My father showed it to me, who had cut it out of a newspaper. I felt a little embarrassed because I was naked and dying. I hated that picture and I couldn’t see it, I didn’t care if it was famous Years later, he began to change his opinion of the image and what it represents.
The photographer clearly remembers what happened on June 8, half a century ago, after the napalm bombardment of the city of Trang Bang began. “When I saw the explosion, I thought everyone would have died, but hundreds of people escaped from the black cloud. There were those who carried the bodies of dying children in their arms. One of them was Phuc’s grandmother, who was carrying a 3-year-old boy.” Shortly after, the main character of ‘The Napalm Girl’ appeared in front of Ut’s camera in tears. “She was naked because her clothes were burned by the napalm. I went up to her to photograph her and when I walked past her I saw that her arm and back were burned.”
It was then that Ut left the camera and walked over to the chick and offered her two bottles of water. “I thought about putting it on his wounds, but he yelled at me that he wanted to drink. We stayed with a colleague from the BBC to help her. We put all the kids in my van,” explains the reporter, who took the kids to a nearby hospital where they were told they didn’t have enough medicine to cure them. He made sure they did this down the toilets. show their press accreditation and warn them that their names would end up in the papers if they weren’t covered.
Source: La Verdad
I’m Wayne Wickman, a professional journalist and author for Today Times Live. My specialty is covering global news and current events, offering readers a unique perspective on the world’s most pressing issues. I’m passionate about storytelling and helping people stay informed on the goings-on of our planet.
