Bob CollinsNews photographers are an interesting breed and war photographers, in particular, are cut from a different cloth.
One of the great ones died today. Horst Faas, died in Munich at 79, the Associated Press, for whom he shot his photos, said.
The AP said that Faas shared a Saigon villa with the late New York Times correspondent David Halberstam, who said of Faas, “I don’t think anyone stayed longer, took more risks or showed greater devotion to his work and his colleagues. I think of him as nothing less than a genius.”
A great war photographer makes you linger over the photo. Like this one from Bangladesh, in which four men are killed by Bangladesh guerrillas because they were suspected of being Pakistani infiltrators.
All a photographer can do — Faas took that shot — is watch and take a picture, and spend an eternity wondering whether there was more that should have been done.
For this one, he won a Pulitzer:
