 |
| Bernie Boston 1967 |
"I knew I had a good picture" - Bernie Boston
Bernie Boston was born on May 18th 1933 in Washington, D.C. and grew up in Virginia where he became the photographer for the newspaper and yearbook of his high school. Boston joined the army practising radiology and left after only two years, returning to Washington. He started working at Custom Photo Finishing and eventually started his own news photography company in Ohio. He was hired by the Los Angeles Times and has gone on to win many awards including National Press Photographers Association award, the Joseph A. Sprague Memorial Award and induction into the hall of fame of Sigma Delta Chi.
My first impression upon visually taking the entire photo in is fascination and awe. A man no older than eighteen, still practically a boy, is standing up for what he believes in with dozens of soldiers ready to blow his face off. Showing no fear or even the slightest intimidation of a rifle centimetres away from his head, he slides a flower down the barrel. The image is all encompassing.
The entire photograph is focused and clean. Boston has managed to hide away any full view of a subjects face. The photo was shot in black and white, exposing the light of the protesters and the darkness of the soldiers. This can be interpreted to mean the protesters have the right view and message and all the goodness that comes with it but the overwhelming forces are trying to corrupt and destroy that.
After googling this photo a bit, I was rather interested to discover just how much history and influence this photo has had, not just in its own time but today as well. Perhaps particularly because the photographer just happened to be in the right place at the right time (I'm impressed at his quick reflexes and composing skills given he had no idea this was about to happen), and his newspaper editor actually rejected the photo on submission. How it came to fame instead was through photography competitions, which just goes to show that even if one person in the industry rejects a photo the rest of the world may well embrace it.
ReplyDeleteIt says to me: we photographers should never stop shooting, we should never let an opportunity slide, we should always have our eyes open and our cameras ready, and we should take pride in our work, be confident in it, and always put our photos out there in some form or another whether it's been rejected or not.