New Video Online: Horst Faas - Part 2

Helicopters and Napalm

In the second installment of this special FotoTV series, historic journalist and photographer Horst Faas discuses his ca

reer and the most dangerous international assignments he has been on throughout the world, this time focusing on hi

s time in Vietnam. Faas explains the reason why he was sent to Vietnam by the photo agency AP.

As it turns out, a photographer already stationed there had been duping the public and new agencies by photographing the same missions, soldiers and helicopters over and over again and releasing the photo series over a course of 14 days. Well this did not sit well with the new media and Faas was brought in to due some damage control and take over where the ousted photographer left off. Adventure, danger, and sheer excitement are what Faas experienced in his early photography missions to Vietnam. He found all that was happening around him to be very dramatic, even if there was at times not much action at all excepting lying low in knee deep rice patty fields. But he was in the middle of it all-- between helicopters and the infamous Napalm. He accompanied the troops on inherently perilous helicopter combative missions and was even privy to their daily operations planning.

Faas tells wonderfully vivid and historical stories about Vietnam, some of them heartfelt and personal and some of them documentary in style. It was the monumental and meaningful photos that he took there which enabled him to share his work and talent with the world, which won him the Pulitzer Prize.