Tim Page, a British photojournalist whose humanist coverage changed how the world saw the American Wars in Indochina, has died at the age of 78
CNN reports that the photojournalist–who was wounded four times and once declared dead when covering conflict in Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia in the 1960s and 1970s–died of liver cancer on Wednesday.
Page was among the first foreign photojournalists to document the conflict in Laos, beginning in the 1960s.
He is remembered for photographs which look unflinchingly at the human cost of war, capturing the suffering of both civilians and soldiers.
One of Page’s “famous lines was,” according to friend and fellow photojournalist Ben Bohane, ” ‘The only good war photograph is an anti-war photograph.’ ”
The coverage of journalists like Page, who frequently joined soldiers in their helicopters and on the ground, bringing the reality of war to faraway audiences for the first time in history, had a profound influence on global opposition to the war.
The journalist character in filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola’s acclaimed war film Apocalypse Now is based on Page.
In 1971, Page was involved in convincing the American Daniel Ellsberg to break the Pentagon Papers to the public, which consisted of US military documents showing that the American public had been deceived by their government regarding military actions and motives during the wars in Indochina.
Following his time in Asia, British-born Page went on to settle in Australia, where he established an Australian war photographers’ collective and taught photojournalism at Griffith University.
