Still photographs are the most powerful weapons in the world. Words and pictures have a continuing struggle for primacy. In my mind, a person can write the best story in the world; but a photograph is absolute.
Eddie AdamsStill photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them, but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths.
Eddie AdamsI'm not a great believer in the power of the moving image. A still image has greater lasting power.
Eddie AdamsIf it makes you laugh, if it makes you cry, if it rips out your heart, that's a good picture.
Eddie AdamsAll that a Pulitzer really does is give the obit writers something to put between the commas after your name.
Eddie AdamsI was getting money for showing one man killing another. Two lives were destroyed and I was getting paid for it. (On his 1968 photograph of the summary street corner execution of prisoner Nguyen Van Lem by South Vietnam's police chief, Lt. Col. Nguyen Ngoc Loan.)
Eddie AdamsI saw a man walk into my camera viewfinder from the left. He took a pistol out of his holster and raised it. I had no idea he would shoot. It was common to hold a pistol to the head of prisoners during questioning. So I prepared to make that picture - the threat, the interrogation. But it didn't happen. The man just pulled a pistol out of his holster, raised it to the VC's head and shot him in the temple. I made a picture at the same time. (On his 1968 photograph of the summary street corner execution of prisoner Nguyen Van Lem by South Vietnam's police chief, Lt. Col. Nguyen Ngoc Loan.)
Eddie Adams