Trang Bang, 1972

The girl is Phan Thi Kim Phuc. We all “know” her. Which I find amazing since I’ve never actually met her and this photo was taken about 10 years before I was even born. Yet, somehow, I know this little girl. Odd, no? This is why I like this photo; iconic images in general are incredibly interesting to me. More importantly, they raise some interesting questions, ones that piggy-back off of Berger.

Do photos need narratives (that provide contexts)? What would have happened if this photo was released without a caption or explanation? What if we did not know the war it came from; the girl’s name; the village; the year; what the cloud was behind her; why she looks in pain; whether she is safe after this is taken? This photo was cemented in American consciousness in 1972, and it continues to remain a (Pulitzer Prize winning) image of war. Would it have achieved that type of status without the narrative that was attached to it from the beginning? Furthermore, Berger talks about our tendency to create narrative when we are not given them. What happens when a 13 year old sees this photo, lacks the historical context, and perhaps sees it as a child in the Middle East at war? Does that change the photo? Does it essentially have the same message/meaning? Has the author, as Berger says, “chosen an instant which will persuade the public viewer to lend it an appropriate past and future?” Does it need to be about Vietnam and Phan Thi Kim Phuc for it to achieve its purpose? I think this is a perfect example of the notion that photos can provide “irrefutable evidence” but are weak in meaning. The power of this image is simply that it happened, this irrefutably happened to those children. Is the images power arrested to the Vietnam war specifically or not?

This iconic image also makes me question whether this is one of Berger’s “for ever” moments—one that exists across history, outside of time. We all have those images in our personal lives, as he notes, but aren’t iconic images proof of the social subjectivism he says is hard to find in our culture? Isn’t this a moment frozen in time, one that extends across history, and means is meaningful for large groups of people? Is that not a socially subjective “for ever” moment?

Finally, I cannot help but think about the photographer in this image. Huynh Cong Ut, or Nick, won a Pulitzer for this image. But, even as Berger says, aren’t there times when a person puts down his/her camera? Nick’s first reaction to seeing the pain of these children was to take a picture? That baffles me…. The narrative fills in the blanks, Nick poured water on Phan Thi Kim Phuc after this picture and took her to a nearby hospital where she spent 14 months recuperating from the burns. Her brother, also in the photo, also recovered but lost one of his eyes. As Hill and Helmers stress, the (mass) dissemination and (outraged) reception of this photo helped push for war reform in Vietnam; however, in the moment Nick could not have known that, all he knew was that these children were in extreme pain and he chose his camera lens first. I cannot reconcile which is more inhuman: the napalm or the fact that this image was taken.