The photographic career of American photojournalist Eddie Adams (New Kensington, Pennsylvania 1933 - New York City 2004) spanned 45 years, in which he covered every possible subject, including 13 different wars. At high school Adams joined the school newspaper and also photographed weddings and other events. After graduation, he served for three years as a Marine Corps combat photographer in Korea. After working for several newspapers in Pennsylvania, Adams joined The Associated Press (AP) in 1962. For AP, he travelled three times to Vietnam to cover the war. His image of a Vietcong lieutenant being executed at close range by a South Vietnamese general on a Saigon street became one of the photographic icons of the 20th century.
After an interlude at Time magazine between 1972 and 1976, Adams returned to AP as a special correspondent. His 1979 photo story about Vietnamese boat people fleeing their homeland, motivated the U.S. government to admit 200,000 Vietnamese refugees to the USA. In 1980, Adams became a staff photographer at Parade magazine and, from 1982 until his death in 2004, he was Parade's special correspondent.
Adams remains one of the most published photographers in the USA: his work has been published in numerous newspapers worldwide and magazines such as Time, Vogue, Vanity Fair and Parade. Adams received more than 500 Awards, including 22 World Press Photo awards and the 1968 World Press Photo of the Year award. In 1988, he initiated The Eddie Adams Workshop, an annual workshop for aspiring photojournalists in Jeffersonville, NY, which is still running strong today. His widow Alyssa Adams donated his archive to the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas in Austin.
