Journalism professor Doug Lawhead had to fight back his emotions when he began speaking about the Pulitzer Prize-winning photo of a victim from the Oklahoma City bombing.

The photo showed firefighter Chris Fields carrying young child Baylee Almon, who later died of injuries from the bomb.

This image, alongside other famed news photos, was showcased in “True Stories Behind Great Images” last night in Mary J. Booth Library.

Lawhead and fellow journalism professors Brian Poulter and Peter Voelz spoke about the background behind many infamous and Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs.

Lawhead said he started to choke up because he could relate to the scene in the child’s photo.

“I’ve sat next to a one-year-old and watched him die,” Lawhead said.

He said he tells his students being a photojournalist is a fun job but parts of it are “not so cool.”

Lawhead said the pictures can make a story real.

He spoke about a famous photo, published in 2004, which showed rows of coffins containing soldiers who had died in Iraq, their bodies being taken home.

Lawhead said the photos of the coffins made people realize the death tolls better than a story could.

“Numbers are hard to comprehend, but when you see that image, it’s easier to comprehend,” Lawhead said.

He said many people do not know that the Pentagon had a policy in place banning photographs of flag-draped coffins that were being transported back to their families.

When the photo was published, Tami Silico, the photographer, and her husband were both fired from their job at Maytag Aircraft.

But losing a job because of a controversial photo is not nearly the worst thing to happen to these photographers.

Voelz shared that when Kevin Carter won the Pulitzer Prize in 1994 for his photo of a Sudanese child struggling on her way to a food station with a vulture in the background, many thought it was a great photo.

After a while, people began to question whether the photographer could have saved the child. Carter said he chased the vulture away but then left – without knowing the fate of the girl.

The criticism became so hard for him to take that he committed suicide just two months after winning the Pulitzer, Voelz said.

Still, some photographs are so moving that they incite change, Poulter said.

Stanley Foreman’s Pulitzer-Prize winning photograph of people falling when a fire escape collapsed during a fire resulted in a change for fire escape laws.

Sara Cuadrado can be reached at 581-7942 or slcuadrado@eiu.edu.

Photojournalism professor Brian Poulter discusses how a Speed Graphic camera was used to capture the 1942 Pulitzer Prize winning photograph Ford Strikers Riot by Milton Brooks. (Nora Maberry/ The Daily Eastern News)

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