Nick Ut (b. 1951) is a Vietnamese-American photographer and journalist who worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles. He is most famous for his 1972 photograph of Kim Phuc—known as “The Terror of War”—which depicts children fleeing away from napalm bombs during the Vietnam War. Ut was awarded both the 1973 Pulitzer Prize and the 1973 World Press Photo of the Year. “The Terror of War” continues to be extremely influential within photojournalism and war photography. The spectacle of violence was considered so great that many credit the photograph as the catalyst to ending the war in Vietnam. 

Miraculously, Nick and other photographers helped bring many injured children to the hospital, and Kim survived the bombing after suffering from 3rd degree burns to her body. 

Alicia first met Nick and Kim in 1996, as a student for the Eddie Adams workshop. There, Nick and Kim spoke about the making of “The Terror of War,” and the death of civilians in wartime. Alicia continued to return to the workshop as a producer and a team member, forging a relationship with both Nick and Kim. Today, Nick is a photographer based in Los Angeles. Kim is based in Toronto, where she founded the The KIM Foundation International to help children displaced and harmed by war. She has written multiple books about her experience and complicated relationship to the photograph. 

In 2015, Nick came to the Salt studio to teach students about the making of war photography, the unseen histories embedded within photographs, and what it truly means to be documented during war.