Homage to Eddie Adams: 1933 – 2004
Eddie Adams
Associated Press
Eddie Adams, who won a Pulitzer Price for his famous 1968 picture of the execution of a Vietcong guerilla in a street of Saigon, died a year ago at his studio in New York City. He was 71 years old and will be remembered by most as the photographer who made that great photo “that helped end the Vietnam war”. It also brought Eddie the kind of fame that is mostly attributed to a movie star or head of state. Eddie Adams was born and raised in New Kensington, Pennsylvania, started his photography career shooting weddings for his high-school newspaper, joined the staff of the Kensington Daily Dispatch and went serve in the Marines as a combat photographer in the Korean war for three years. Eddie was a brave man and that experience stayed with him all his life. I never knew Eddie to be afraid of anyone or anything and when he was diagnosed with ALS known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, Eddie spent his final months collecting his photographs sitting in his studio with his friends and photojournalists and planning for the next Eddie Adams “Barnstorm”. During these moments I never heard Eddie complain about health or feel sorry for himself.
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I met Eddie when I was the head of Sygma photo agency in New York and Eddie was already an icon, but for me he was mostly a great artist, not easily impressed, as comfortable with sick children, famous movie-stars, poor people as with the seven Presidents of the United States he photographed, and he was as comfortable in his studio shooting fashion photography as he was in a battlefield. Eddie shot for AP, Time Magazine, Vanity Fair, Parade where his photographs made more than 350 of their covers. He also did advertising, commercial work, fashion photography, but for me he will be remembered as the best photojournalist of his generation, never missing the defining Image that captures it all. Many of Eddie’s photos had great impact and changed American politics forever. The “Saigon execution” shows Nguyen Ngoc Loan, a south Vietnamese General shooting a handcuffed Vietcong prisoner in the head. Years later Eddie remembered the scene with clarity; he thought the General was going to interrogate the prisoner. When the image appeared, it shocked the World and turned public opinion against the War. However Eddie was most proud of his 1979 photograph, “Boat of no smiles” showing 50 Vietnamese, mostly women and children, on a fishing boat fleeing their country. This photograph led President Carter to open immigration to Vietnamese refugees in the United States. In his 45 year career, Eddie collected more than 500 photojournalism awards, yet never totally satisfied with his ability to tell a story, he always “hoped to capture that single image that told an immediate truth while expressing a larger truth” . That’s what you did, Eddie, all your life.
Eliane Laffont
