Newz(AP) — Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer Slava ‘Sal’ Veder, best known for his picture of a U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel joyfully reuniting with his family after five years in a prisoner of war camp in Vietnam, died Aug. He was 99.Veder’s family on Wednesday confirmed that the retired Associated Press photojournalist died in his sleep, just eight days shy of his 100th birthday, at his home in El Dorado County, California, outside of Sacramento.The San Francisco Bay Area native was 46 years old in March 1973 when he was sent to Travis Air Force Base for the arrival of Lt.
Stirm and other war prisoners returning from Vietnam. Veder was in a crowded bullpen jockeying for pictures with dozens of other photographers when, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted Stirm’s four children begin to gallop toward their father.“You could tell, even at a distance, what they were feeling. It was all over them, their faces, the way they all broke into a run.
There was a surge of emotion from the crowd, too,” Veder said in a 2015 interview with The Guardian.Using a makeshift darkroom set up in a women’s bathroom on base, Veder cranked out six images, including “Burst of Joy,” which won the 1974 Pulitzer in feature photography. But for Stirm, it represented heartbreak as he had been handed a “Dear John” letter from his wife, Loretta, by a chaplain upon his release and the couple divorced a year later. 30, 1926, in Berkeley, California, to Ivan and Anka Veder, who had left Russia and taken the names John and Ann when they settled in the U.S.
He was their only child.He worked as a sports writer and news editor at several publications and, in 1961, he was hired as a staff photographer by The Associated Press at its Sacramento bureau. It was really his passion,” said his daughter, Kathleen Daly. “The AP really was the home for him because they could appreci…
He mentored younger photographers and always took time to ask the people around …
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