Pulitzer Prize 2012. Warning may upset some people

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PsiFox

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I give it two days till this thread is filled with "He should have put the camera down and done something to help" v "He was doing his job, the world needs to see these things" arguments, a few people will take it all too personally, the insults will fly and then the thread will get locked.
 
Well we can but live in hope on that.

There are alway opposing views and some people never get the idea of a person recording human suffering.

I will stand up and say if I had been doing his job, I would have kept shooting too knowing there are others who can help.
 
There's some very interesting tensions, certainly.

Forgive me but I'm a bit too busy to dig up the info but I wonder whether the prize criteria and the judging panel somewhat work against the publicity that the 'prize' inevitably gathers ( even 'prize' makes it sound like a competition, which it isn't ). If the judges are made up of people who've been there and done that then they'll probably know that it takes a certain presence of mind and split-second judgement to take a shot like that and that's why they make the award. The public are for the most part oblivious to what's going on every day in Afghanistan and can never possibly imagine what it's like to be in a conflict zone so can never understand the context in which the work is being commended, and that's why some people, quite understandably, say why couldn't you just help ... ?
 
ChrisGilbert said:
There's some very interesting tensions, certainly.

Forgive me but I'm a bit too busy to dig up the info but I wonder whether the prize criteria and the judging panel somewhat work against the publicity that the 'prize' inevitably gathers ( even 'prize' makes it sound like a competition, which it isn't ). If the judges are made up of people who've been there and done that then they'll probably know that it takes a certain presence of mind and split-second judgement to take a shot like that and that's why they make the award. The public are for the most part oblivious to what's going on every day in Afghanistan and can never possibly imagine what it's like to be in a conflict zone so can never understand the context in which the work is being commended, and that's why some people, quite understandably, say why couldn't you just help ... ?
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Erm - yes it is!
 
brianwar said:
I give it two days till this thread is filled with "He should have put the camera down and done something to help" v "He was doing his job, the world needs to see these things" arguments, a few people will take it all too personally, the insults will fly and then the thread will get locked.
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well in all fairness he could of put the camera down after taking the shots and helped out :) best of both worlds.
 
I think its a very good photo,one that needer to be taken,we often hear on the news,car bomb gone off somewhere or the other,now we can see the effect of one.

Poor childrens :(
 
ChrisGilbert said:
There's some very interesting tensions, certainly.
The public are for the most part oblivious to what's going on every day in Afghanistan and can never possibly imagine what it's like to be in a conflict zone so can never understand the context in which the work is being commended, and that's why some people, quite understandably, say why couldn't you just help ... ?
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I think thats a little hard to claim these days. Since Iraq pt 1 conflicts have become a media circus. And certainly for Afghanistan its even reached the point where various Z listers tag along with companies to show us exactly whats going on out there in order to make the next thrilling fly on the wall type doc. Youd have to be living in a cave now to have no idea of what conflict is like.
 
essexash said:
I think thats a little hard to claim these days. Since Iraq pt 1 conflicts have become a media circus. And certainly for Afghanistan its even reached the point where various Z listers tag along with companies to show us exactly whats going on out there in order to make the next thrilling fly on the wall type doc. Youd have to be living in a cave now to have no idea of what conflict is like.
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But they don't really show the gritty moment like those depicted in the link.

All those z list documentaries are unbelievably soft as they actually focus on the celebrity regardless of where the doc is being filmed. I'd be surprised if they were shot anywhere more than a mile or 2 from their plane!
 
dead kids makes a photo great these days then

I'll be honest I don't understand this competition - seems to be the winner is the person that can take the most horrific photo. I really don't think there is any difference in that sort of photography compared to taking pics of celebs being drunk. I'm all for recording of history but that just seems wrong in some way.
 
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POAH said:
dead kids makes a photo great these days then

I'll be honest I don't understand this competition - seems to be the winner is the person that can take the most horrific photo. I really don't think there is any difference in that sort of photography compared to taking pics of celebs being drunk. I'm all for recording of history but that just seems wrong in some way.
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You don't understand this competition? You've never heard of the pulitzers?
 
It's a unique photo. It's his choice whether he tries to make a difference, something he's trained to do and by all accounts has done it many times before......or try and do something many of us haven't had to do...save a life. Perhaps he felt his best option was to record whats was going on, i'm sure the prize wasn't in the back or indeed the forefront of his mind.
 
POAH said:
nope never heard of them
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It's probably the most prestigious journalism award in the world. Look at the historical Pulitzer photography prize winners, I'm sure you'd recognise more then half of then.

It's sort of their job...recording images of things we couldn't otherwise imagine, or recording once in a lifetime events.
 
like all those crap students in the back of BJp. Want to travel around the world and use a lame excuse 'I want to educate the the world ' with photos of dying poor people..

T**t!!!!!!!

He not win a prize or get any money. When he retires he will be one of the losers that will make a large coffee table book and sell it for £150 a book.

Hacks me off. If he says' Stuff your award! I was doing my job, don't need your sad little prize!'

Id would have big respect' But, once he got his shots roll your bloody sleeves up and lend a hand.

Always the same limp reason for shooting this stuff... The world needs to know! does it kack... Man has been crapping on man since time began... We learn lots and do nothing.. Forget very quickly and it all happens again.
 
Daryl said:
like all those crap students in the back of BJp. Want to travel around the world and use a lame excuse 'I want to educate the the world ' with photos of dying poor people..

T**t!!!!!!!

He not win a prize or get any money. When he retires he will be one of the losers that will make a large coffee table book and sell it for £150 a book.

Hacks me off. If he says' Stuff your award! I was doing my job, don't need your sad little prize!'

Id would have big respect' But, once he got his shots roll your bloody sleeves up and lend a hand.

Always the same limp reason for shooting this stuff... The world needs to know! does it kack... Man has been crapping on man since time began... We learn lots and do nothing.. Forget very quickly and it all happens again.
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Finding it hard to take you seriously for some reason.
 
I feel torn over this.

On one hand, I think it's extremely important that controversial images like this are showcased, so I have no issue with this receiving a prize. Photographs of atrocities serve the essential function of educating the wider world without the taint of media bias; the Vietnam War era springs to mind as another period of shocking imagery - like the harrowing photography of the massacre at My Lai, or Nick Ut's photo of the children running from the napalm attack on the village of Trang Bang, which was actually the first image I thought of when seeing this one, as this echoes many of the same feelings and is likely to prompt much of the same debate, which leads me to...

... on the other hand, it is rather gauche. I know I couldn't just stand there and photograph a scene like that. While I recognise our duty as humans to record atrocities, I also can't help but wince at the insensitivity shown here. However, it's important to bear in mind that we don't know what happened afterwards; in the case of the aforementioned Vietman photo, the photographer rushed the little girl in his photo to a hospital to get treated for the burns she had suffered. It's entirely possible that the photographer here reacted similarly after taking the shot. But in all honesty, it still makes me uncomfortable, and had I been in his place, I don't think I could have taken the shot.

On another note, I'm really surprised that there are people that have never heard of the Pulitzer Prize O_o
 
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There's no doubting it's a powerful image - it conveys the horror of that terrible situation very well indeed. Am I right in thinking these awards are journalism related and not for creative/pretty pictures?
 
Daryl said:
like all those crap students in the back of BJp. Want to travel around the world and use a lame excuse 'I want to educate the the world ' with photos of dying poor people..

T**t!!!!!!!

He not win a prize or get any money. When he retires he will be one of the losers that will make a large coffee table book and sell it for £150 a book.

Hacks me off. If he says' Stuff your award! I was doing my job, don't need your sad little prize!'

Id would have big respect' But, once he got his shots roll your bloody sleeves up and lend a hand.

Always the same limp reason for shooting this stuff... The world needs to know! does it kack... Man has been crapping on man since time began... We learn lots and do nothing.. Forget very quickly and it all happens again.
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Yes their is a lot of that,that sometimes go on,but it the same in every forum of Photographty.
We don't always no the facts behind every photo,and in many ways did we in the long run bring all this ****,on theses people.
It's very easy to turn away,and say this **** happen all the time,who cares while we sit back,and say we can do nothing :(
 
Daryl said:
like all those crap students in the back of BJp. Want to travel around the world and use a lame excuse 'I want to educate the the world ' with photos of dying poor people..

T**t!!!!!!!

He not win a prize or get any money. When he retires he will be one of the losers that will make a large coffee table book and sell it for £150 a book.

Hacks me off. If he says' Stuff your award! I was doing my job, don't need your sad little prize!'

Id would have big respect' But, once he got his shots roll your bloody sleeves up and lend a hand.

Always the same limp reason for shooting this stuff... The world needs to know! does it kack... Man has been crapping on man since time began... We learn lots and do nothing.. Forget very quickly and it all happens again.
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Daryl, I'm not sure what you're on about, but he's a staffer for AFP and the prize (which went to him, not the agency) was $10,000.

I get that you don't like photo-tourists, but this guy is the real thing.

Next time check first before ranting!
 
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Photographs like this play a valuable role in the documentation of a conflict, a news report on TV is always a little ambiguous - you often hear about where/when/how many died, but you don't often see what it all looks like. They allow us to witness events by proxy. I have no qualms about awarding prizes for this kind of stuff, PJs get paid sod all anyway, and the prizes themselves bring awareness to events.
 
He gets paid to do it. he does not need to get a naff prize.

Do the job and get stuck in and help people. Do not like togs making money for JUST SNAPPING because they are in a WAR ZONE .

Brian war? I'm not a wedding tog.. Only just going back into it guess you dont read that much either.

If the guy excepts a plastic award fine. but any money refuse or give to charity.

I was Scenes of Crime for 7 years MATE. Give me an award for shooting images of someones family because some gormless drugged up halfwit broke in to a house and the family come home early and the idiot panicked and carved three of them up with a kitchen knife!!!!!

'Oh thanks for the award. i'd like to thank my sister who never helped me get to where I am today. I expected to get this award.... thank you thank you'

Photojournalists. Tourist togs with a salary

Parasites making extra dosh out of someone elses misery.

Nobel prize, Funny the nick name he had too ("The merchant of death )" = Man who invented dynamite.....
 
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Boring. Boring boring boring.

One thing I cannot stand about these competitions and citations is that they seem teeming with pictures of impoverished people of colour undergoing extreme anguish, agony, or turmoil.

The very fact that something so utterly, incomprehensibly heartbreaking could actually win a "prize" should disgust even the staunchest of people.

In black and white, a man just profited from the extinguished lives of innocent people.

All of these prizes should be boycotted and ignored. This kind of misery needs to be documented, but it doesn't need to be celebrated.
 
Sorry not meant as that. Will remove. Not homophobic. I was thinking of meatballs by Mr Brains. Just angry.. just word to me nowt else.

Never noticed any defending..... Just my view. not here for an argument.

i just dont see why awards and cash are given to such images that are saddening. Yes they need to be seen. But the tog should get wealthy from it.
 
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onona said:
Wow. Now I regret defending you in my previous post. Take your homophobia and your rants somewhere else.
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This.

I was trolling.

There's no excuse for homophobia. Not even that you didn't mean it. If you see a pejorative term as "just word" (sic) and not as a disgusting insult then you really are as ignorant as I suspected.
 
Daryl said:
He gets paid to do it. he does not need to get a naff prize.

Do the job and get stuck in and help people. Do not like togs making money for JUST SNAPPING because they are in a WAR ZONE.
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To a certain extent I agree with the first part when it comes to the subject matter in this case (AFG), but these are the US equivalent of the World Press Photo and UK PPY awards which all of the big agencies submit to on behalf of their staffers, as well as freelancers putting their own work in.

The Pulitzer has one requirement that the others don't, however; in that the work must have been published (in the US).

Being that it's a US award with an American jury, they are always going to have a slant on what's been important to them in the news year. The Libyan images submitted by Getty were stunning and especially poignant as one of their photographers was killed whilst working there.

I suspect that we'll see something fairly similar in this year's PPY, with the August London riots at the top of the agenda.

Most professions show recognition of excellence in some way or other and I don't really see what's wrong with that.
 
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brianwar said:
This.

I was trolling.

There's no excuse for homophobia. Not even that you didn't mean it. If you see a pejorative term as "just word" (sic) and not as a disgusting insult then you really are as ignorant as I suspected.
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He's just said he wasn't being homophobic. Words have duality of meaning. Jew and jew.

Ironically, the issue with projective terms aren't the words themselves, but people like you who insist that everyone should be outraged.
 
ACW said:
But they don't really show the gritty moment like those depicted in the link.

All those z list documentaries are unbelievably soft as they actually focus on the celebrity regardless of where the doc is being filmed. I'd be surprised if they were shot anywhere more than a mile or 2 from their plane!
Click to expand...

I was once in the Army and served in Northern Ireland and the 1st Gulf.

The only media frenzy I encountered in the Gulf was when Jim Davidson "the comedian" came to visit and did a quick 10 minute routine.
 
No wonder this Country has got so soft. No one can sing a song or say anything now with out the happy clappy brigade coming to the rescue....

I said sorry and I did not think anything of that word.... Because Brian of War, I dont think racist or anti gay. So I don't get offended by any thing as such.

Again sorry. Was not meant to cause offence in any way. I'll say Meat balls next time............


Any way Brian you keep voting for togs to take photos whilst the peoples families look on in horror.. and the tog walks off chimping the back of the camera....
 
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And now you have, let's get back on topic please

:)
 
Just wanna a jump in before the thread gets locked and say thanks everyone for being so entertaining.

FWIW I think the Pulitzers are very worthy and valid.

OK, continue.
 
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