don_e Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 "War is covered by the media, but the quality of the coverage has deteriorated." Since Greneda in the US and since Kosovo in Europe, to put dates on it. Photography can't change human nature, but it can alter perceptions. When done with that intention, it should be labeled advertising or propaganda, not photojournalism or documentary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtk Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 "The media" is a politician's alibi and fantasy in 2008. There's all sorts of intensely personal coverage of wars by participants and victims, right here on the Internet. Do you want to see it? I don't, and that tells most of the tale. Peek into http://aljazeera.com/ for a different angle. Or http://english.pravda.ru/ ...if you like Fox, you'll love Pravda. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hank_skinner Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 John Kelly:<p/>You proved your point back when you posted "Napalm Girl". I thought that was the perfect example of an image changing the world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobtodrick Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 Okay...so how has 'napalm girl' changed the world? Have we (in the worldwide collective) stopped using napalm? Have we stopped war? Have we stopped the needless slaughter of civilians in times of war? Hasn't changed a whole lot in my mind! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pankaj purohit Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 No one (Human) can change the world or never changed, all are prewritten script in the hand of the God, we all are charecters and now n than being captured or shoot by the God...... Thats All..... Now coming to the story here... A Photo has impact to blow anyons mind, but depends how much impact a photo has and what change is being made, but today we don't see the every photo has originality, in between so much manupullations and because today manupullations is very easy task to do, it is being harder n harder to beleive easily on a "photograph"......... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtk Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 Bob, Hank... I don't think my post about napalm could have been more clear. Nick Ut's photo changed nothing. Woody Allen used it almost as a joke in his movie, Manhattan. We don't use napalm today because we find cluster bombing more entertaining. Our counterparts trump cluster bombs with truck bombs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allen Herbert Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 Okay...so how has 'napalm girl' changed the world? We don't know it is not measurable ,however, at the very least it has put us in touch with reality. Perhaps we don't care too much as long as it is not us. Perhaps it makes us think a bit more about war..... Thinking is good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonmestrom Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 "Nick Ut's photo changed nothing" That's not true. It finally brought home to the American people how morally wrong the Vietnam war was. It changed public perception. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Allen Herbert Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 The eternal Moral and Philosophical dilemma does the end justify the means? Is it right to burn or starve little folk to death,or, big folk for that matter.to achieve a morality based on our belief of what is good. The napalm girl photograph gives us a bitter taste of the reality of our actions...does it change the way we think? Of course it does. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
don_e Posted June 19, 2008 Share Posted June 19, 2008 "That's not true. It finally brought home to the American people how morally wrong the Vietnam war was. It changed public perception." Thus George McGovern won the presidency in a landslide victory that year. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pnital Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 Not one photo done by a photograph specializing in photojournalism, or even a series of them done by the best one,( the Vietnam girl as an example) can realy create a change, but the accumulation of photos and articles in the different media forms ,stories of survivors, can help( sometimes !) to form a public opinion and awarness that will force the politicians to take actions and sometime change. Living in a war zone, many times photographes are manipulated to show situations that are not real, the Dura Palestinian child with his father is a good example of a photo that has created world public waves ,and than arrived till the court, because it was found to be staged..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bobtodrick Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 Ton...showed us how morally wrong the Vietnam war was??!! Seems we quickly forgot...you know, that little fracas in Iraq we're going through. Again, humans are what they are...and it really isn't, on the grand scale, all that pretty. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norma Desmond Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 Tuesday was the first full day that lesbian/gay marriages were allowed in California. I went down to City Hall, observing the amazing events taking place on every balcony and staircase in that amazing building. Mayor Gavin Newsom walked about, beaming at the results of his own courage and heart, having defied anachronistic laws on the day he became mayor by marrying same sex couples without prior juridical approval. Though those marriages were struck down, he and the city brought a case to the California Supreme Court, which has now acknowledged that the state's constitution will not allow for discrimination against gays, making gay marriages as legal as others. It's a pretty story and it was a pretty day. I took a whole bunch of pictures, which will go out to many people previously unexposed to the reality of gay love, instead knowing only of antics and costumes at gay pride parades and the demeaning words of their preachers. That's the kind of thing that effects change. It's real. Of course, there are hideous sides to humans. Dwell there if you want. Or not. We didn't need dialogue. We had faces! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
don_e Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 The tendency here is to nominate for world changing photograph a picture that confirms our ideologies and sentiments. That is true, I think, about the nomination of Hu's photo. I think there is one photo from 1972 and the Vietnam War that qualifies as having an effect on the world and especially the United States. In fact, 30 years after it was taken it had an impact in 2004. It might not confirm you in your sentiments, but I think it did and does have the power to change perceptions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:HJGE.jpg Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pnital Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 Don, I don't know what this photo did in the USA, but sorry it did not change world perceptopn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
don_e Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 "Don, I don't know what this photo did in the USA, but sorry it did not change world perceptopn." To the extent that it influenced the political opinions of US voters as to which congresspersons and presidential candidates they voted for, it surely affected the world, leading to possibly changed perceptions about the United States. It was a factor in electing President Bush for a second term, rather than John Kerry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrraz Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 Don, Jane's picture/s in North Vietnam did more to inflame passions for the war in the States then anything. There are still vets that would kill her if they saw her. What changed American public opinion about the Vietnam war was seeing it on the news every night at dinner. There was also the steady stream of coffins that poured out the back of cargo planes across the US. What got W elected was the voters were not willing to spend the money to change all the stationary and signs. That makes as much sense as anything else. It wasn't a single picture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pnital Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 It makes sense that the everyday news, and the price of young human life( soldiers) made the change in public perception. Could be that the photo was an ellement in the process, but not THE item that was leading to the change. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
don_e Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 "It makes sense that the everyday news, and the price of young human life( soldiers) made the change in public perception. Could be that the photo was an ellement in the process, but not THE item that was leading to the change." The "change in public perception" being looked for is the turning away of support for the war. That "change" is being taken for granted here and there's a looking for a photo or a process building to that change. How much of that is the desire for those opposing such wars to find proofs for their position -- that a majority (finally) agreed they were right all along etc? So, I bring up Hanoi Jane's photo, a certifiable changer of perceptions, which, through the US political process, continues to have its effects. We have to look at the historical reality, not what we wish were so. That photo, rather than turning away support for the war, instead enhanced it -- even though "Vietnamization" was underway and the war was for the US at least nearly over as far as ground forces went -- being taken as evidence that the the antiwar people were idiots at best. It remains potent propaganda in the "culture war" in the US. It is one reason why antiwar people can barely get a civil hearing when a war begins, such as the Iraq War. The photo is unimpressive, unlike Hu's. Maybe that's why it and its impact are invisible to photographers. Hu's photo should be, ought to be, powerfully effective in changing perceptions. I don't think it did. We expect war to be a pitiful horror, but Hanoi Jane? That was shocking. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jtk Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 Our invasion and occupation of Vietnam ended with the same terms we were offered in the last days of the Johnson admin. More than half of the American deaths in Vietnam were caused by Richard Nixon's friends (google Claire Chennault/Vietnam). The invasion and occupation was a total failure...communist government remains intact, just as in Cuba and Laos. The difference is that we didn't waste many American lives for purely religious and political purposes in Cuba or Laos. Both Vietnam and Cuba are slowly coming around, and hopefully they won't turn into Mafia states like Russia. We elected two presidents that we knew were draft dodgers. That's nearly 16 years now. Hardly any politicians ever served in Vietnam. Perhaps Hanoi Jane had something to do with that. I bought a fine Graflex XL kit with 80 Planar, 70mm back, and Vietnam mud from the helicopter pilot who stole it. Stolen equipment was a commodity in the US at the time, and the stories about army-delivered heroin underestimated what was happening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norma Desmond Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 Don. Jane Fonda on the one hand. Robert McNamara on the other. Who to blame? Who to blame? Epithets are so cute. I have little sympathy for vets who want to kill Jane but don't hold the same animosity toward those who sent them to fight, kill for no reason, be maimed themselves, or die in the stupid war in the first place. Misplaced anger, I'd say. And what is "idiotic" is blind allegiance to despotic rulers who pushed that war. We didn't need dialogue. We had faces! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrraz Posted June 20, 2008 Share Posted June 20, 2008 Unless you're a Vietnam vet you can't understand what motivates us. Fred, I don't have a lot of sympathy those that want to off Jane, but I do understand their feelings. We, Vietnam vets, got stuck in a war the government never wanted to win. What caused so many hard feelings toward Jane was her being considered a turn coat for fraternizing with the enemy while Americans were dying across the border. We only fought for each other's survival. It was very personal. You can place blame all the way back to Harry Truman for the Vietnam conflict. His rejection of support for Ho and an independent Indochina, 3 separate countries, thus letting the French reoccupy was the start. It built from there. Somehow the US has always managed to back the wrong side mainly because they weren't Communist. John, In what part of Laos do you think we didn't waste American lives? Perfectly good GI's were dying there also. It was the quiet war run by the CIA, but staffed by DOD. Special Forces routinely lost their lives monitoring the Ho Chi Minh Trail. When any of you speak of Vietnam, be sure of your facts. I'm not talking about what you find googling Vietnam or the History Channel. I'm talking about the histories of both sides that you only find in libraries. Dry, dull reading where small facts reside(no pictures). Everyone here writes like they have an ax to grind based on vagaries and half truths. It's just as bad as those that had that "idiotic blind allegiance" to "despotic rulers." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Norma Desmond Posted June 21, 2008 Share Posted June 21, 2008 Jane's method will forever be questioned and that's fine. Most of the motivations of those protesting, whether the methods were smart or not, were to bring you guys home quickly and alive so you wouldn't have to continue "fighting for each other's survival," surely a heroic pursuit but unfortunately an unnecessary one if it hadn't been for our government gone awry. Probably neither side understands the other sides feelings as well as they think, me included. (It's OK for rational people to disagree without each side assuming the other isn't well read or well versed in what they're talking about. I've listened to brilliant philosophers debate centuries-old issues with opposite views. They never resort to questioning how smart or well read the other side is. They stick to the issues and respect the fact that even great minds disagree. Ad hominem attacks undercut anyone's argument, even yours, which is an otherwise reasonable one.) We didn't need dialogue. We had faces! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
don_e Posted June 21, 2008 Share Posted June 21, 2008 "Don. Jane Fonda on the one hand. Robert McNamara on the other. Who to blame? Who to blame? Epithets are so cute." If this thread turns into a Vietnam War, and not photography, thread, then it will be closed. I answered the subject question in the context of photography. The cite to Hu's photo led me to consider 1972 and the war. As for blame. I don't blame. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrraz Posted June 21, 2008 Share Posted June 21, 2008 Fred, I questioned the facts being asserted. Hindsight being 20/20 I can see now that I could have express my view better. Flashbacks and their resulting anger sometimes cause my perspective narrow and rationality goes out the window. There was nothing heroic about what we did. Even in defense of each other. Killing to avoid being killed is nothing more then instinct. Don, Getting back to photography, has anyone looked through a copy of "Requiem" by Horst Faas and Tim Page? It has work by all the photographers from both sides that died while covering the conflict. There is a great deal of work that changed nothing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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