The Stringer: The man who took the photo

“The photograph of Kim Phuc is perhaps the most iconic photograph of a war ever made,” said Gary Knight. “The photographer is almost as well known as the photograph itself.”

The Associated Press photograph has always been credited to Nick Ut, a staff photographer, but new evidence suggests it may have been taken by Nguyen Thanh Nghe, a freelance.

Knight, co-founder of VII Photo Agency and a former FCCT member, was the moving force behind The Stringer, the documentary by Bao Nguyen first screened in January at the Sundance Film Festival. It finally comes to a global audience on Netflix on 27 November, and its contention is that the photograph was deliberately misattributed.  
AP has stuck with the original credit by Horst Faas, its Pulitzer-winning photo editor in Saigon at the time: “In the absence of new, convincing evidence to the contrary, the AP has no reason to believe anyone other than Ut took the photo.”

It is difficult to overstate the visual significance in the history of the Vietnam War of the photograph of nine-year-old Phan Thi Kim Phuc, “the napalm girl”, running naked down toward the camera on 8 June 1972, having just been severely burned in a US air strike.

'Terror of war' aka 'The napalm girl' (AP)
Carl Robinson will be joined by Gary Knight for the FCCT discussion. Other panellists to be announced.  

Members who wish to book in advance should email info@fccthai.com or call the FCCT office on 02-652-0580.

Non-members can use this link.