Eddie Adams
[Photojournalist, b. 1933, New Kensington, Pennsylvania, d. 2004, New York.]
How do you know you wouldn’t have pulled the trigger yourself?
(On his 1968 photograph of the summary street corner execution of prisoner Nguyen Van Lem by South Vietnam's police chief, Lt. Col. Nguyen Ngoc Loan.) 
James Nachtwey
[Photographer, b. 1948, Syracuse, New York, lives in New York.]
We must look at it. We’re required to look at it. We’re required to do what we can about it. If we don’t, who will?
David Douglas Duncan
[Photojournalist, b. 1916, Kansas City, Missouri, lives in Mougins, France.]
You’ll never find one of my photographs that violates your privacy, or if you’re knocked off, your mother’s privacy. I never show you any corpses or shot-up bodies. These sons of bitches today, you know, after a typhoon, after an earthquake, anything, they’re right in there. That’s not my privilege. I want you to feel the story of fatigue and tragedy and heartbreak. If they’re dead, you’ll never see their faces.
Ron Haeberle
[Photographer, b. 1941, Cleveland, Ohio, lives in Cleveland.]
I happened upon a group of GIs surrounding these people and one of the American GIs yelled out, “Hey he’s got a camera.” So they kind of all dispersed just a little bit, and I came upon them and looking at the photograph I noticed the one girl was kind of frantic and an older woman trying to protect this small child and the older woman in front was just, you know, kind of pleading, trying to, beg, you know, begging and that and another person, a woman was buttoning her blouse and holding a small baby. Okay, I took the photograph, I thought they were just going to question the people, but just as soon as I turned and walked away, I heard firing, I looked around and over the corner of my shoulder I saw the people drop. I just kept on walking.
(On photographing the My Lai massacre, Vietnam, March, 1968.)
Larry Burrows
[Photographer, b. 1926, London, d. 1971, Laos.]
You can’t photograph bullets flying through the air, so it must be the wounded, or people running with ammunition, and the expressions on their faces.
Sabrina Harman
[U.S. military guard at Abu Ghraib Prison, Iraq, b. 1978, Lorton, Virginia, lives in Virginia.]
... it went too far even I can’t handle whats going on. I can’t get it out of my head. I walk down stairs after blowing the whistle and beating on the cells with an asp to find “the taxicab driver” handcuffed backwards to his window naked with his underwear over his head and face. He looked like Jesus Christ. At first I had to laugh so I went on and grabbed the camera and took a picture.
(October 20, 2003, written from Abu Ghraib Prison, Iraq to her friend Kelly)
Donald McCullin
[Photographer, b. 1935, Finsbury Park, London, lives in Somerset, England.]
There is no doubt that my photographs have a very strong religious overtone, they are like twentieth century icons. When human beings are suffering, they tend to look up, as if hoping for salvation. And that’s when I press the button.
