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Moments: The Pulitzer Prize Photographs
The Pulitzer Prize Photographs
- GenresPhotographyNonfictionArt
128 pages, Hardcover
First published January 5, 1980
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
November 9, 2025
Every page brought back memories of a faraway time and place where I, as a youngster for most of the time covered in this history, absorbed these photos as part of my culture and history. I didn't know that at the time, of course, but as I look now and realize I know the stories behind virtually all these photos. That's a reflection of their importance to us as historical and cultural touchstones.
Outstanding1
Outstanding1
August 30, 2018
As Dan Rather writes in the introduction, it can sometimes be discouraging how one image can literally say a thousand words. But these are very much worth looking at. It's breathtaking, honestly. If you've ever been to the Newseum in Washington, D.C., looking through this book is like being there again.
March 16, 2025
An international journalism memory album of tragedy, disasters, horror, murder, and other mostly negative/shocking emotions frozen for our eyes to linger over
Dan Rather writes the foreword to this compendium of world history (as viewed by American press) from 1942 union organizing violence outside River Rouge plan to 1970's civil rights and anti-Vietnam War struggles
The volume begins with the first Pulitzer Prize photograph: "Battle on the Picket Lines," 1942, Pete Brooks, Detroit News, a photo "capturing in a startling way the fury and the power" of breaking a picket line by Ford goons.
One of the most recognizable photographs is raising the flag at Iwo Jima, 1945, Joe Rosenthal. Generally, each photo fills one page with the opposite page explaining the background, historical significance, photographer, and other context.
Some that are not crystalized mayhem include a photographer shooting a subject from the rear:
* Nat Fein, New York Herald-Tribune to snap Babe Ruth's #3 on the back of his jersey in "the King of Clout, the Sultan of Swat," 1949, taken two months before the Babe died and the number was retired.
* "A Miracle," 1954, was taken by a tourist with a Brownie camera. The "miracle" was the cab of a diesel hanging off a bridge, ready to drop, and does seconds after rescue of the passengers.
* The Norman Rockwell-like composition of a photograph that drew "more response than any photo every published in the Washington Daily News" A tiny little boy steps in the street to get a better view of the meandering floats of the Chinese New Year parade in Washington, D.C., 1958. A policeman spots the boy stepping into the street and he bends down to the boy.
* A joyous, live birth.
More with the effective theme of lives disrupted are:
*"Live...from Dallas," 1964, the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby
* The shooting of James Meredith in Mississippi, after he integrated Ole Miss in 1967 and was shot while on a solo march
* The cold killing captured in "Democracy and Freedom?", 1969, the shooting of a Viet Cong by Brigadier General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, Vietnam's national police chief. Eddie Adams of AP took this photograph with a telephoto lens.
* 1971, "A God-Awful Scream" captured the nation's appalled reaction to the shooting of several Kent State students protesting the Vietnam War. National Guardsmen were given live ammo to use on their own countrymen.
There are also harrowing images of mental institutions, bayoneting, napalmed children in Vietnam, hostage-taking, a cross burning and other forced bussing reactions.
The last photograph, "Dedicated to Eddie Robinson," 1977, shows a Vietnam veteran, a double amputee, in his wheelchair, holding his little daughter, on his first outing since returning home from the hospital. Robinson watches an Armed Forces Day Parade.
Dan Rather writes the foreword to this compendium of world history (as viewed by American press) from 1942 union organizing violence outside River Rouge plan to 1970's civil rights and anti-Vietnam War struggles
As you turn from page to page to examine very famous photographs of national history, you will learn a little more what makes our national character.
The volume begins with the first Pulitzer Prize photograph: "Battle on the Picket Lines," 1942, Pete Brooks, Detroit News, a photo "capturing in a startling way the fury and the power" of breaking a picket line by Ford goons.
One of the most recognizable photographs is raising the flag at Iwo Jima, 1945, Joe Rosenthal. Generally, each photo fills one page with the opposite page explaining the background, historical significance, photographer, and other context.
Some that are not crystalized mayhem include a photographer shooting a subject from the rear:
* Nat Fein, New York Herald-Tribune to snap Babe Ruth's #3 on the back of his jersey in "the King of Clout, the Sultan of Swat," 1949, taken two months before the Babe died and the number was retired.
* "A Miracle," 1954, was taken by a tourist with a Brownie camera. The "miracle" was the cab of a diesel hanging off a bridge, ready to drop, and does seconds after rescue of the passengers.
* The Norman Rockwell-like composition of a photograph that drew "more response than any photo every published in the Washington Daily News" A tiny little boy steps in the street to get a better view of the meandering floats of the Chinese New Year parade in Washington, D.C., 1958. A policeman spots the boy stepping into the street and he bends down to the boy.
* A joyous, live birth.
More with the effective theme of lives disrupted are:
*"Live...from Dallas," 1964, the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald by Jack Ruby
* The shooting of James Meredith in Mississippi, after he integrated Ole Miss in 1967 and was shot while on a solo march
* The cold killing captured in "Democracy and Freedom?", 1969, the shooting of a Viet Cong by Brigadier General Nguyen Ngoc Loan, Vietnam's national police chief. Eddie Adams of AP took this photograph with a telephoto lens.
* 1971, "A God-Awful Scream" captured the nation's appalled reaction to the shooting of several Kent State students protesting the Vietnam War. National Guardsmen were given live ammo to use on their own countrymen.
There are also harrowing images of mental institutions, bayoneting, napalmed children in Vietnam, hostage-taking, a cross burning and other forced bussing reactions.
The last photograph, "Dedicated to Eddie Robinson," 1977, shows a Vietnam veteran, a double amputee, in his wheelchair, holding his little daughter, on his first outing since returning home from the hospital. Robinson watches an Armed Forces Day Parade.
February 6, 2020
Oh my goodness, if you dig photojournalism, you must see this one. So many powerful images.
August 18, 2022
These Pulitzer prize photographs. Were taken at the right time and place.
April 25, 2016
Published in 1978, this book shows the Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs up until that point, along with a page of discussion surrounding the conditions of each image. It serves as an effective look at American and world history from 1942 Union busting violence to 1977 civil rights struggles.
The big lesson it also teaches is that the most important thing as a photojournalist is to be at the right place at the right time.
The big lesson it also teaches is that the most important thing as a photojournalist is to be at the right place at the right time.
November 18, 2011
Stunning black and white photography is definitely attention-getting but not always enlightening. A number of times the photographer was just at the right place at the right time. Many of the famous photos deal with the dark but real side of existence: violence and death(both accidental and intentionally inflicted). There's not a lot of uplift here but plenty of drama.
November 8, 2015
The pictures are so worth looking at and knowing the background of, of course, but the text was laughably bad in places
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews