Photographer who took famous Saigon photo dies

Yahoo - AP ^ | 05/15/09 | RICHARD PYLE and JEREMIAH MARQUEZ

[Borges]

HONG KONG – Hugh Van Es, a Dutch photojournalist who covered the Vietnam War and recorded the most famous image of the fall of Saigon in 1975 — a group of people scaling a ladder to a CIA helicopter on a rooftop — died Friday morning in Hong Kong, his wife said. He was 67 years old.

Van Es died in Queen Mary Hospital in Hong Kong, where he had lived for more than 35 years. He suffered a brain hemorrhage last week and never regained consciousness, his wife Annie said. Hospital officials declined to comment.

Slender, tough-talking and always ready with a quip, Van Es was considered by colleagues to be fearless and resourceful. He remained a towering figure after the war in journalism circles in Asia, including his adopted home in Hong Kong.

"Obviously he will be always remembered as one of the great witnesses of one of the great dramas in the second half of the 20th century," said Ernst Herb, president of Hong Kong's Foreign Correspondent Club.

[Borges]

Different photo.

[Hatteras]

[cameraeye]

I was always of the belief that this was a frame from a video tape. Am I wrong? My gift is my timing and I saw the video tape of this criminal being shot and assumed no one could have taken the picture that fast.

[ßuddaßudd]

There’s a guy in my company who looks like that guy...

[cameraeye]

What picture are we talking about?

[Boiling Pots]

I don’t understand why people would want to flee Communism, with all its fairness, free health care, free education and equality!

[Revolting cat!]

That’ll learn ‘im!

[caver]

The photo that you posted was the first one I thought of. That photo was also misquoted by many a liberal.

[Travis T. OJustice]

I see that guy fishing all the time.

[a fool in paradise]

Van Es died in Queen Mary Hospital in Hong Kong, where he had lived for more than 35 years

He lived in a hospital for 35 years?

[Travis T. OJustice]

Wrong photograph, wrong photographer. duh.

[a fool in paradise]

I thought his whole trial and execution was staged for the media, just like when Marilyn Monroe’s dress “blew upward”.

[dfwgator]

Another quality journalist, courtesy of our wonderful J-Schools.

[a fool in paradise]

That photo was also misquoted by many a liberal.

So is the one of the girl running down the street.

[a fool in paradise]

I don’t understand why people would want to flee Communism, with all its fairness, free health care, free education and equality!

"If you understood what Communism was, you would hope, you would pray on your knees that one day we would become Communist." Jane Fonda, 1970

[A.A. Cunningham]

Ritter gave you bad gouge, Ryan.

[C210N]

He lived in a hospital for 35 years? Yeah, a building where there are doctors and nurses and sick people. But, that's now important right now!

Excuse, but the thread gave me an Airplane! flashback...