L.A. TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER WINS PULITZER
He’s honored for his searing pictures of fall of Kabul last year
Los Angeles Times photographer Marcus Yam won the Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography on Monday for his poignant and searing pictures of last summer’s fall of Kabul, Afghanistan, to Taliban fighters.
Yam delivered pictures of unspeakable tragedy and abiding emotion despite a manhandling by one of the insurgents, the near-constant menace of other fighters and the abundant technical hurdles of transmitting images out of a war zone.
Yam’s prize was for what the judges described as “raw and urgent images of the U.S. departure from Afghanistan that captured the human costs of the historic change in the country.” He shared the award for breaking news photography with four photographers from Getty Images, commended for their “comprehensive and consistently riveting photos of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.”
His editors said Yam employed an “almost radical open-mindedness” to capture scenes that epitomized the chaotic end of the United States’ 20-year occupation of Afghanistan. The pictures are hard to forget:
A young boy’s face, crumpled in anguish as a bloodied child is carried to safety; Taliban gunmen, bowing in prayer over their shoes and assault rifles; a family, praying for loved ones killed in an errant U.S. drone strike, as another American aircraft flies overhead; and two local journalists, stripped to their underwear to reveal the scarlet wounds of a savage beating.
Dr. Patrick SoonShiong, owner and executive chairman of The Times, recalled in a videoconference with the paper’s staff how proud and scared he was last summer as he followed Yam’s harrowing coverage.
“You were out there doing amazing things,” said Soon-Shiong, who also owns The San Diego Union-Tribune. “What you’ve done, with the photography and the images, was so important for the world. The word ‘genocide’ really needs to be said. And your pictorial really brings it home. It’s really important.”
Yam, 38, was born and raised in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. He became a photographer after leaving a career in aerospace engineering and joined The Times in 2014.
Yam laid the groundwork for his coverage of the Taliban’s blitzkrieg takeover of
Afghanistan with diligent previous work in the country. One foray into the country with a writing colleague produced profiles of Afghans whose life spans coincided with the duration of the long war, young women who had never known Taliban rule, and musicians facing a ban on the vocation they loved.
In the summer of 2021, the Taliban’s lightning-fast advance and his instincts told Yam that the capital, Kabul, would soon fall. He packed his gear in 20 minutes and flew out of his temporary base in Lebanon,
with five minutes to spare.
Yam’s editors said that in words and actions, he and his reporting partner, Nabih Bulos, made clear to locals that they would treat combatants and civilians with respect and dignity. Their repeated visits to the Kabul airport and contacts with the fighters manning the gates meant that — by the time a final, desperate airlift of refugees occurred — the journalists had extraordinary access.
Five days into his odyssey, Yam documented a showdown between the Taliban and supporters of the
outgoing government. In the midst of the tense scene, he was set upon by a tall fighter, who hit him repeatedly in the head and demanded that he delete the photos he had been taking.
Instead, Yam repeatedly identified himself and pleaded for the right of journalists to record the conflict. Before the encounter ended, the aggressors were apologizing and offering Yam and another journalist energy drinks, and requesting that they pose for selfies.
“We obliged, but I didn’t smile,” Yam wrote in his first-person account of the episode. A fixer’s car had been called. “We jumped in the car and raced away,” Yam recalled. “It wasn’t even noon yet, and the temperature was scorching. I went home and iced my injuries. I hoped they wouldn’t get too black and blue.”
In a phone call later that day, Yam told Times foreign editor Jeffrey Fleishman about an array of logistical concerns, including finding a new driver. In a congratulatory Zoom call with the paper’s staff Monday, Fleishman recalled how the understated Yam added, almost as an afterthought: “Oh, yeah, and I got beat up by the Taliban.”
Yam thanked his colleagues Monday, saying his work wouldn’t have been possible without the collaboration of many, including Bulos, the paper’s Middle East correspondent, and Calvin Hom, the executive director of photography.
He concluded by dedicating his award to the people whose images he captured, noting the erosion of freedoms they face under the Taliban.
“The bravery and the courage really belongs to everyday Afghans, whose lives were changed overnight,” Yam said. “As Westerners, we have the privilege of coming and going. And they are the ones that have to remain and to face the unknown. So this is for them.”