vietnam war and photography

[Immi666]

i have to write an essay on vietnam war photography, and how the photos published in american newspapers essentially led to the end of american involvement in vietnam, due to the pressure of public opinion on the president. does anyone know of any websites/books/other sources i can use for research?

[jno]

it wasn't so much photos as TV news, night after night - since then the US military have taken much more care about stopping journalists reporting the news, eg by 'embedding' them with army units in the hope they will become biased. But there was a lot of memorable still photography. The most famous photos are probably these two:

http://www.hippy.com/trip/nam.jpg

http://www.anselm.edu/academic/history/graphics/execution.jpg

[gary baldy]

You cant really talk about photography and Vietnam without mentioning Larry Burrows
http://www.life.com/Life/burrows/vietnam.html

It was his picture features in Life magazine that had a profound influence on public opinion. They started at the beginning of the war being quite celebratory and glorifying the armed forces. As the war went on however his pictures became more and more graphic and in the end portrayed the US as the invading aggressors.

[Holbeckian]

Try the following.....

http://history1900s.about.com/library/photos/blyindexvietnam.htm

http://www.vietnampix.com

[Octavius]

For me there were 2 photos in particular which summed up the horror of the situation (not that I was around during the conflict):

http://www.doublestandards.org/kimphuc.jpg

&

http://www.themodelminority.com/misc/images/execution.jpg

[jno]

can't get your first link to work Octavius (though the second seems oddly familiar)

[Octavius]

This page also has the picture of the young girl running (1st link) sorry about that.

http://www.vietnamwar.com/phanthikimphuc.htm

[Immi666]

thank you soooo much guys. they're all great sites and are coming in really handy.

octavius, i already had those two pictures in my notes. seems i was right to have them there if they're the ones everyone remembers.

[Octavius]

You're welcome. Good luck with the essay.

You might want to also include the Buddhist monks protesting against government policies by self-immolation. This lead to embarrassing press coverage : thichquangduc

Here are more links: mediacoverage

http://homepage.newschool.edu/~wilder/KickingVNSyndrome.html