I made my first photographs in Viet Nam. It was late 1962, I was eighteen and had not been out of high school very long. I was a door gunner in a helicopter unit. My father loaned me a Rolliflex camera that I did not know how to use, but without a light meter.

Although I didn’t know much about cameras, I did have an idea of what a good photograph was. That’s because my parents were friends with photographers like Dorthea Lange, Imogen Cunningham, Ansel Adams, William Garnett, and others. That gave me the opportunity to be an innocent bystander when they were talking about art and artists and the creative process. So I had seen a lot of good photographs before I made any myself.

The photograph on the left was made in combat, under fire. The Vietnamese rangers have been delivered to an enemy position and are running to their assembly areas. Smoke in the background comes from close air support attacks and burning structures. My helicopter had a bullet hole in it when we got back to base. This was one of the very first exposures I ever made and I set the camera by centering the dials for shutter speed and f-stop.

Below, two dead ARVN soldiers. Below right, fresh blood from a pilot who took a bullet to the head on his first mission.