The Final, Decisive Moment
A partial photographic history of executions.
Warning: This story contains graphic photographs. Viewer discretion is advised.
“I have never been able to make a sharp picture of executions,” LIFE magazine photographer Carl Mydans said. “It has nothing to do with the imperfections of my camera or my own failure as a photographer. It has to do, I now understand, with an inward revolt, a self-revolt against my taking such pictures.”1
That’s profound.
In 1944, Mydans photographed French resistance fighters executing six Nazi collaborators in Grenoble. The “imperfections” in Mydans’ photo are ghostlike.
Mydans’ quote, specifically his admission of an “inward revolt,” warrants deeper reflection and inspired me to look back at other photos of executions throughout history. Some took on new meaning, others less so.
The first photo of an execution was taken by Felice Beato in 1858, of two Indian mutineers sentenced to death by hanging.
Beato, an Italian-English architectural photographer, was commissioned by the War Office in London to document the aftermath of the failed rebellion against British rule in India. The most commonly-seen version of Beato’s photo is heavily retouched.
Notice how the mountain range in the background has been completely removed, giving definition and adding separation to the foreground. Regardless, the photos Beato made during the First War of Independence, including the staged ones, marked a pioneering moment in documenting the brutality of conflict, a “pictorial romance of this terrible war.”2
In 1865, following the assassination of President Lincoln, Alexander Gardner photographed the execution of co-conspirators George Atzerodt, David Herold, Lewis Powell, and Mary Surratt at the Old Arsenal Prison in Washington, D.C.
Gardner’s thoughtful use of scale recurs throughout history. Surratt’s dress, the umbrellas, the staring soldiers, even the cracks in the glass plate, are ominous details.
In 1928, the New York Daily News devised a cunning plan to secretly photograph the electrocution of convicted killer Ruth Snyder. The city editor and two photo editors, Ted Dalton and George Schmidt, masterminded the shoot, enlisting photographer Thomas Howard from the Chicago Tribune to avoid arousing suspicions among Sing Sing prison officials.3
Howard strapped a pre-focused miniature glass plate camera to his left ankle with a cable release snaking up his pant leg into his pocket.
Howard practiced in his hotel room for a month, perfecting the technique of lifting his pant leg, composing the image by pointing his shoe, and firing off the shutter release in his pocket. He only had one frame to capture the execution.
“As she lurched at the first shock, Tom made an exposure. He quickly closed the shutter and waited for the second shock, exposing as the switch was thrown. The exposure was approximately five seconds.”4
The glass plate was tiny, about the size of a 35mm negative. The final, published image was beyond retouched, essentially a SpotTone painting.
This is a contact print of the entire glass plate, which I find far more intriguing than the cropped, retouched version. While I’m sure it’s not exactly what Howard was going for, the composition is compelling — one man is facing Snyder while a woman is turned away. I also appreciate the unintentional tilt. It’s a good thing Howard had so much practice, he nearly botched it.
“That gal [Ruth Snyder] was the best public relations woman I ever had,” Howard said.5
The Daily News sold a million extra copies of the paper that day, which clearly inspired them to send photographer Joseph Costa all the way to Owensboro, Kentucky for the public hanging of confessed killer Rainey Bethea.
On August 14, 1936, before a raucous and bloodthirsty crowd of 20,000, Bethea was led to the gallows and hanged. Dozens of photographers documented the carnival-like atmosphere. Costa, “Mr. Press Photography,” rushed his film back to New York via private plane.
Costa’s composition is discerning, like Gardner’s, capturing the magnitude of the crowd with onlookers spilling onto nearby roofs, peering out of windows, clinging to telephone poles. It looks more like a concert or political rally, not an execution. The hanging of Rainey Bethea was the last government-sanctioned public execution in the United States.
The documentation of executions dramatically increased during World War II and LIFE, ironically, led the way. In addition to Mydans, John Philips and John Florea photographed notable executions during the war.
On September 29, 1943, Philips photographed the French military executing two Nazi spies in Syria.
LIFE published Philips’ series, writing, “Two Nazi spies, as never before seen in photographs, are about to meet the strict ritual of French military execution.”
On December 23, 1944, LIFE’s John Florea documented the execution of German spies in Belgium. The three men were part of Operation Greif, a mission conceived by Hitler employing English-speaking Nazis in U.S. uniforms. The round, white paper targets pinned over the heart of the condemned soldiers are a haunting detail.
Florea’s photos were published in the June 11, 1945 edition of LIFE. The ads are unfortunate, yet fascinating. I’m sure Florea was livid over it.
Florea’s interview with John Loengard from 1993 is one of the most revealing and, at times, painful interviews I’ve ever read with a photographer. His anger and resentment towards LIFE and some of the other photographers is palpable — an “outward revolt.”
The competition among LIFE photographers was truly fierce. One year after Florea documented the execution in Belgium, he fired a rifle at fellow LIFE photographer George Silk, who he felt was encroaching on this territory. “I lifted the rifle up like I was going to shoot him, and he turned and ran. I shot about 20 feet above him,” Florea told Loengard. “I wasn’t going to kill him. I wanted to scare him. If I wanted to kill him, I’d have shot him in the head.”6 Florea eventually left photojournalism and became a successful television director.
Few images capture scale like this epic 1945 photo by Svatopluk Sova.7
Sova, shooting from the rooftop of a building behind the gallows, captured nearly 100,000 people gathered to watch the hanging of war criminal Josef Pfitzner, the Nazi mayor of Prague.
On January 10, 1946, Lee Miller documented the execution of László Bárdossy, the fascist ex-Prime Minister of Hungary.
As I’ve written in the past, this photo of Miller’s is a testament to her brilliance — artful and restrained, perfectly composed in an impossibly tense situation. Miller's deliberately pulled-back and elevated position distinguished her photos from those of LIFE's John Philips, who was photographing at ground level.
In 1956, John Sadovy, disguised himself as an ice cream vendor to sneak into Budapest during the Hungarian Revolution. On assignment for LIFE, Sadovy photographed the last moments of a group of secret police, executed by Hungarian rebels.
“I expected one man might be shot or threatened but they fired on the whole group point blank as the men raised their hands,” Sadovy recalled.
“I was three feet from that group. Suddenly one began to fold. They must have been real close to his ribs when they fired. They all went down like corn that had been cut. Very gracefully. And when they were on the ground the rebels were still loading lead into them.”8
Sadovy’s contact sheet reveals the entire sequence. It’s striking to me that a photographer would have the instincts to reframe vertically in such an intense situation.
LIFE published Sadovy’s photos in the November 12, 1956 edition.
However, no execution photo in history has left a more enduring impact than Eddie Adams' jarring, unforgettable image from Saigon, February 1, 1968.
Adams’ photo captures the horrifying moment a South Vietnamese general executed a handcuffed Viet Cong prisoner. It’s forever-etched into the world's consciousness, a symbol of the brutality of war and the complexity of truth in photojournalism.
The contact sheet reveals how unexpectedly everything unfolded. Adams reacted seamlessly, instinctually making photos — even going vertical — as the prisoner crumpled to the ground.
But what I find most interesting about the contact sheet is seeing the entire, full-frame of Adams’ iconic photo. It’s superior to all of the cropped versions — notice the half-step of the oblivious soldier on the right and the extended hand of the soldier on the far left.
I also appreciate the notch in the frame on the right edge. Old-school “film photographers” will recognize that.
Adams wasn’t the only photojournalist who witnessed the execution. Vietnamese cameraman Vo Suu was standing just to Adams’ left. The video, while graphic, stands as a testament to Adams’ final, decisive moment.
Saigon Execution was widely published and instantly iconic. Thanks to renowned picture editor John G. Morris, the photo appeared above the fold on Page One of The New York Times February 2, 1968 — a rarity in that era.
Edward T. Adams received the Pulitzer Prize in 1969 and his photo was named the World Press Photo of the Year. There’s even a comic book about the infamous moment. Illustrated by Andy Kubert, The ‘Nam was published by Marvel in the late 80’s.
Mydans’ concept of an “inward revolt” seemed to weigh heavily on Adams. His wife, Alyssa Adams, wrote that he “hated the photo…The image disturbed him and he continually wrestled with the responsibility it brought. Even more, he disliked being defined by one image when he was capable of much more.”9
“Two people died in that photograph: the recipient of the bullet and General Nguyen Ngoc Loan. The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera,” Eddie Adams wrote in TIME.
Eleven years later, another execution photo won the Pulitzer Prize — anonymously. On August 27, 1979, an Iranian newspaper photographer documented the mass execution of eleven Kurdish rebels.
Fearing for the photographer’s safety, the newspaper, Ettela’at, published the photo uncredited, and, inexplicably, flipped horizontally.
After the photo appeared in Ettela’at, a UPI correspondent bought a print from the newspaper and transmitted it around the world. Like Adams’ Saigon Execution, Razmi’s photo was published on the front page of The New York Times.
“Anonymous” remained unknown until 2006, when Wall Street Journal reporter Joshua Prager revealed his identity: Jahangir Razmi. The article is outstanding, filled with incredible details.
“Without this picture,” Razmi told Prager, “I wouldn’t be anything.”
That’s profound.
John Loengard, Life Photographers: What They Saw (New York: Bulfinch Press, 1998), 101.
“The Photographic Journal,” Journal of the Photographic Society, no. 79 (February 22, 1859), 1.
John Faber, Great News Photos and the Stories Behind Them (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1978), 44.
Ibid., 44.
Ibid., 9.
John Loengard, Life Photographers: What They Saw (New York: Bulfinch Press, 1998), 169.
Svatopluk Sova, Fotografujeme pro noviny (Prague: Orbis Publishing House, 1960).
Harold Evans, Pictures on a Page: Photo-Journalism, Graphics and Picture Editing (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1978), 113.
Alyssa Adams, ed., Eddie Adams: Vietnam (New York: Umbrage Editions, 2008), 7.
Now, this might call for a new type of reaction button, something that would say "this is an interesting post that i recommend reading", because here it feels a bit weird to click on a red heart...
More seriously: Thank you, this is a very interesting article. I once read more about the context of the "Saigon execution" picture (in short, the prisonner had been directly responsible for heinous and murderous acts just a few hours before being arrested, which may explain (not justify) the act of the general). And this 'spontaneous' execution is different from the other pictures you show, where there has been some sort of judicial decision - but then, one might also question the fairness of tribunals, especially in contexts of war. What strikes me is that they are all cases where pictures are clearly not enough: we need a detailed and balanced account in order to understand the events. And yet, for all their limitations, photographs are such a powerful language.
Phenomenal and fascinating post. Thanks, Patrick.