The Journalist Who Photographed the Burning Monk

The Man Behind an Iconic Vietnam War Image Captured ‘the Ugliest Events of Our Time’

While President John F. Kennedy was talking by phone with his brother, U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, on the morning of Tuesday, June 12, 1963, he suddenly exclaimed: “Jesus Christ!”

The president’s outburst had nothing to do with their conversation. Rather, he was responding to a photograph taken the day before, splashed on the front pages of the newspapers just delivered to him. The photo showed 73-year-old Buddhist monk Thich Quang Duc engulfed in flames on a street in Saigon, South Vietnam while sitting calmly—it seemed—in the lotus posture. He hoped …

by Ray E. Boomhower | June 8, 2023

A Fragile Livelihood in Yemen

Photojournalist Asmaa Waguih Captures a Nation at War, at Work, at Rest

by Solomon Moore | June 1, 2022

Cairo-based photojournalist Asmaa Waguih has always felt a close connection to Yemen, her Red Sea neighbor. Her father was an Egyptian military officer who fought in the country for many …

The Photo Album That Succeeded Where Pancho Villa Failed

The Revolutionary May Have Tried to Find My Grandfather by Raiding a New Mexico Village—But a Friend’s Camera Truly Captured Our Family Patriarch

by Stacey Ravel Abarbanel | February 2, 2022

For a long time—at first sporadically but lately in hot pursuit—I’ve been looking for Sam. Sam is Sam Ravel, my paternal grandfather. I scour the indexes of history books for …

Where I Go: The Geology of Memory | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

Where I Go: The Headlands of Yehliu

It Took Me 20 Years and Five Visits to Develop My Own Relationship to Taiwan

by Shin Yu Pai | September 15, 2021

I was hiking the Port Orford Heads State Park on the coast of Southern Oregon this summer when I realized how closely the rock formations and coastline resemble the rugged …

The Era of the Girl Is Now | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

The Era of Change Is Now

Las Fotos Project Celebrates 10 Years of Viewing Los Angeles Through the Lens of Young Women

by Jackie Mansky | November 18, 2020

The 18 teenagers logged onto Zoom that Thursday evening had every reason to sound weary. It had been, collectively speaking, a rough week in the rough fall of 2020. During …

Repainting History in Technicolor

Esiri Erheriene-Essi’s 'Familiar Strangers' Finds New Recognition in Photographs of the Mid-Century African Diaspora

by Jackie Mansky | October 14, 2020

The earliest colored photographs were fragile black-and-white daguerreotypes, hand-painted with a watercolor technique. The task was laborious, not to mention risky, because the plates were so easily damaged. But the …

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