Media Talk: Cameras in conflict: the changing face of war photography
Two times Pulitzer Prize winner Horst Faas, this year’s winner Oded Balilty and Santiago Lyon from AP discuss the dramatic changes in war photography as both war and camera technology become increasingly high tech.
Join us on a photographic tour of dark places in wars from Vietnam to Iraq and from the dark room to the digital age.
Horst Faas covered the conflicts in Vietnam, Laos, Congo and Algeria. In 1962 he became AP’s chief photographer for Southeast Asia and was based in Saigon until 1974. His unflinching images of the Vietnam war won him a Pulitzer Prize in 1965. In 1972 he collected a second Pulitzer for his coverage of the conflict in Bangladesh.
As AP’s picture editor Faas ensured the publication of two of the most famous images of the Vietnam War – the notorious picture of the “Saigon Execution” by Eddie Adams and Nick Ut’s famous “Napalm Girl”.
As well as covering the ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine Oded Balilty covered the 2004 Ukrainian elections and demonstrations, the 20th anniversary Chernobyl and the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 2007.
Santiago Lyon is director of photography of The Associated Press, responsible for the AP’s global photo report and the hundreds of photographers and photo editors worldwide who produce it. He has 23 years’ experience in news service photography and has won multiple photojournalism awards for his coverage of conflicts around the globe.
Under Lyon’s direction, the war in Iraq earned the AP its 48th Pulitzer Prize in 2005, for work by a team of photographers. The AP’s winning entry, its 29th for photography, consisted of 20 photos from Iraq by 11 different photographers, five of them Iraqis.
In 2007 the AP won it’s 30th Pulitzer Prize for photography for an image by Oded Balilty showing an Israeli woman attempting to block a line of Israeli riot police.
The evening will also mark the official UK launch of Breaking News: How the Associated Press has covered war, peace, and everything else. This is the first book about The Associated Press since 1940, taking readers into the bureaus and out to the field to experience firsthand AP’s groundbreaking reporting on war, politics, crime, disasters and sports. It features almost 200 images from AP’s photo archive, many of which will be on display. Copies of the book will be available for purchase on the night.
