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| Mary Ann Vecchio knelt over a slain student at Kent State, May 4, 1970. Photographed by: John Filo |
The photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio
kneeling over slain Kent State student Jeffery Miller was taken by John Filo.
Filo was an undergraduate student in Kent State’s photojournalism program at the
time of the May 4th, 1970 altercation between students protesting
the U.S. invasion of Cambodia and the Ohio National Guard. The
altercation occurred on Kent State’s campus and Filo was also there that day. Prior
to the shooting, Filo had been working in a nearby photography building and had
come outside for a break just before the beginning of the protest.[i]
The photograph was developed and published through the Associated Press network
at a small paper, Valley
Daily News and Daily Dispatch in Tarentum, Pennsylvania, where Filo
had worked for a number of years during vacations. In 1971, Filo won the Pulitzer
Prize for Spot News Photograph for his photographic coverage of the Kent State Shooting.[ii]
At
the time of its publication, the impact of the photograph differed among various
audiences. On one hand, it galvanized the anti-war movement among
students on university and college campuses throughout the country. It was the
visual rallying point for the waves of protests which sprung up on campuses
across the country. For the general public who were conflicted in their beliefs
regarding the event, the image was another piece of “evidence” to be used in
the quest to find out what had really happened. Looking at the image it is
possible to see how this image could be used in these ways. The viewer is immediately
drawn into the image by Mary
Ann Vecchio’s open arms and anguished face as well as the body of
Jeffery Miller lying on the pavement. However, when the viewer expands their field
of inspection to the background of the photograph, they are presented with curious
onlookers who lack the same immediacy, terror, and anguish found in the center
of the images. The impact of this photograph would continue past the immediacy
of the event as it became part of the larger visual canon documenting/illustrating
the general unrest in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s.
It is easy to understand level of
impact the photograph had at the time of its original publication. The photograph
was part of the larger event as a whole; the immediate impact of the image is
closely tied to the impact of the event as a whole. Why this image—out of the
many other images from that day—became not only the iconic image of the events
of May 4, 1970, but also one the iconic images of the decade, is more difficult
to discern. Is it because this image made the event seem real? The photograph
could be seen as the embodiment of the widespread idea that “public
attention is steered by the attentions of the media—which means images. When
there are photographs, a war becomes “real.” Thus, the protest against the
Vietnam War was mobilized by images.”[iii] Sontag
goes on to question the validity of this idea, and while it is perhaps true
that photographs do not make war or any other subject matter seem more real,
there is the perception among the general audience that photographs make an
event more real.
The
real long term impact of this photograph is found in its complexity. Despite being
more than forty years old, the photograph still invites conversation. Clarke states
in The Photograph, that “the photograph
both mirrors and creates a discourse with the world, and is never, despite its
often passive way with things, a neutral representation.”[iv] Filo’s
image in many ways mirrored the discourse of the world at the time it was taken
and it continues to have an impact through the discourse it creates with the
world today. Clarke’s statement concerning the lack of neutral representation is
well demonstrated through Filo’s photograph. The image presents a front of
neutrality due to the circumstances in which it was taken. During a 2000
interview Filo was asked what was going through his mind when he took the
picture. He replied:
“what
caught my eye on the street was the body of Jeffrey Miller and the volume of
blood that was flowing from his body was as if someone tipped over a bucket. I
started to flee--run down the hill and stopped myself. ‘Where are you going?’ I
said to myself, ‘This is why you are here!’ And I started to take pictures
again. And the picture I made then was of Jeffrey Miller's body lying in the
street and people starting to come out of shelter, and then a picture where
Mary Vecchio was just entering the frame. I knew I was running out of film. I
could see the emotion welling up inside of her. She began to sob. And it
culminated in her saying an exclamation. I can't remember what she said exactly
… something like, ‘Oh, my God!’”[v]
This account details what is a seemingly spontaneous capture
of the image, which in turn creates a false sense of neutrality. However, when
one considers the fact that this image which has come to represent the event as
a whole is but one tiny moment in time and just one perspective of a complex
event, this sense of neutrality becomes suspect. The initial impact as well as
the long term impact of this image is due to the many complexities which it encapsulated:
the complexity of the image itself, the details of its capture, as well as the
event which it represents.
[i]
CNN, “Photographer John Filo discusses
his famous Kent State photograph and the events of May 4, 1970”, May 4, 2000, http://www.cnn.com/chat/transcripts/2000/5/4/filo/
(accessed November 24, 2012)
[ii]
" The Pulitzer Prizes, “1971 Awards”, http://www.pulitzer.org/awards/1971
(accessed November 24, 2012).
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