AT A GLANCE
- Known for
- The 1972 photograph of children fleeing a napalm attack near Trang Bang, credited to him by AP
- Works in
- Black and white in Vietnam; later news and celebrity pictures in Los Angeles
- Camera
- In Vietnam he carried Leica and Nikon F cameras
- Also
- 51 years with the Associated Press; inducted into the Leica Hall of Fame in 2012
- Start with
- From Hell to Hollywood: The Incredible Journey of AP Photographer Nick Ut (Associated Press, 2021)
- Links
Nick Ut (born 1951), born Huynh Cong Ut, is a Vietnamese American photojournalist. He joined the Associated Press in Saigon at 15 and covered the Vietnam War. Later he spent four decades photographing Hollywood and the news of Los Angeles for AP.
The story
One January morning in 1968, a 17-year-old darkroom worker ran into the AP bureau in Saigon. The Viet Cong were fighting near his house, he told the reporters, and he had pictures of the battle. Until that day his job had been to print other people’s film and shoot small features around the city. From then on, he was a combat photographer.
The camera came to him through loss. His older brother, Huynh Thanh My, was an AP photographer. In 1965 he was killed when Viet Cong fighters overran the unit he was with. At the funeral, Ut asked photo editor Horst Faas for a job. Faas said no. He did not want the family to lose another son. After weeks of asking, Ut was hired on 1 January 1966, at 15. The rule was clear: no camera in a war zone.
But the war came anyway. Ut was wounded several times. His close friend Henri Huet gave him the name Nick. In 1971 Huet took Ut’s place on an assignment and died when his helicopter was shot down. “That’s why I keep the name Nick Ut. In Henri’s honor,” Ut said.
On 8 June 1972, after a napalm strike near Trang Bang, children ran down Route 1. AP credits the photograph of nine-year-old Kim Phuc to Ut, and it won the Pulitzer Prize in 1973. According to AP, he then gave her water and drove her and others to a hospital in his van. “I cried when I saw her running,” he said. In 2025 a documentary questioned who made the picture. AP reviewed the case and kept his credit. World Press Photo suspended its attribution. Ut rejects the claims.
In 1975 he fled Vietnam. After Tokyo, AP sent him to Los Angeles in 1977. There he photographed film stars and court cases, among them Michael Jackson outside a courthouse with his father, Joe.
He retired from AP in 2017, after 51 years. The boy who was told to keep his camera out of the war never put it down. “I’ll take pictures until I die,” he said. “My camera is like my doctor, my medicine.”
The work
- 1951Born on 29 March in Long An province, Vietnam
- 1965His brother, AP photographer Huynh Thanh My, is killed on assignment
- 1966Hired by AP in Saigon on 1 January, at 15
- 1972Trang Bang photograph of Kim Phuc, credited to him by AP, on 8 June
- 1973Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography
- 1977Moves to AP’s Los Angeles bureau after two years in Tokyo
- 2012Inducted into the Leica Hall of Fame
- 2017Retires from AP after 51 years
- 2020Named a recipient of the National Medal of Arts
Lessons
Learn the craft first. Ut spent about two years in the AP darkroom, printing and shooting small features, before he covered combat.
Help comes before the picture. AP reports that after the Trang Bang photograph he gave the burned girl water and took her to a hospital.
Keep working, whatever the subject. After the war he photographed Hollywood stars, court cases and daily news in Los Angeles for four decades.
Try this: spend one week photographing only what happens within walking distance of your home. Ut’s first combat pictures were made near his own house.
Gear
Leica M rangefinder: in a 2012 interview Ut said AP gave him a Leica M2 and an M3 in Vietnam.
Nikon F: he also carried two Nikon F cameras, so he worked with four bodies on assignment.
For many years the Trang Bang photograph was said to be made with a Leica M2. AP’s 2025 review concluded it was likely taken with a Pentax camera.
Books
From Hell to Hollywood: The Incredible Journey of AP Photographer Nick Ut (Associated Press, 2021). Written by Hal Buell, with a foreword by Bob Schieffer and an afterword by Peter Arnett. The 216-page book tells two stories side by side. One is Ut’s life, from his teenage years in the Mekong Delta and the AP bureau in Saigon to Los Angeles. The other is the Trang Bang photograph and his long friendship with Kim Phuc. It has more than 200 photographs from his 51 years at AP, including celebrities, the Los Angeles riots and California wildfires. The best single book on his work.
The Girl in the Picture: The Story of Kim Phuc, the Photograph, and the Vietnam War (Viking, 2000). A 373-page biography of Kim Phuc by the Canadian writer Denise Chong. It follows her from the napalm attack and her long recovery through her family’s hard years after the war, her studies, her use in government propaganda, a study trip to Cuba and her defection to Canada with her husband. Ut appears as the photographer who took her to the hospital. For readers who want to know what happened to the girl after the picture.
Fire Road: The Napalm Girl’s Journey through the Horrors of War to Faith, Forgiveness, and Peace (Tyndale Momentum, 2017). Kim Phuc’s own memoir, written with Ashley Wiersma, 336 pages. She writes about the 1972 attack, the years when the Vietnamese government used her story for propaganda, her move to Canada and her Christian faith. It gives her side of the story behind the photograph.
On 8 June 1972, a girl ran toward the cameras. Her name was Phan Thị Kim Phúc, and she was nine years old.