The man who shot ‘Napalm Girl’
Nick Ut needs no introduction to anyone with an interest in documentary photography, or the often-traumatic history of the 20th century. Even if his name is not as familiar as it used to be, his image of screaming Vietnamese children running from a napalm attack in 1972 can never be forgotten. Nor should it be. Few photographs have helped to change history, but ‘Napalm Girl’ definitely did. While the Vietnam war had generated lots of shocking images before, including the summary execution of a Viet Cong suspect in downtown Saigon and the My Lai massacre, its publication finally exploded the ‘bright shining lie’ that the US had weighed in to somehow save the South Vietnamese population from communism. How could the US claim it was saving anyone when its weaponry was being used to burn local kids alive, and here was the photograph to
