Faith and Confidence (1957), a policeman patiently reasons with a two-year-old boy

Faith and Confidence is a Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of two-year-old Alan Weaver asking police officer Maurice Cullinane a question. The 1957 image was captured by photographer William C. Beall in Washington D.C..

Beall was the chief photographer for The Washington Daily News and he attended a parade in Chinatown, Washington, D.C.; it was there that he captured the award-winning image. The image was printed in his newspaper and it made an impression upon readers. The image was picked up and reprinted by many other publications including Life magazine.

Background

On September 10, 1957, William C. Beall was in the Chinatown section of Washington D.C. to photograph a parade. He worked as a staff photographer for The Washington Daily News.[1][2] Two-year-old Allan Weaver attended the parade and he approached police officer Maurice Cullinane to ask if he was a US Marine. The image was printed in many publications and it also appeared on the back cover of Life (magazine) and it won the 1958 Pulitzer Prize for Photography.[1][3]

Description

William Beall's son Denny claimed that he had taken then image by chance, "He just happened to turn, he saw that and snapped it, just like that: Spin, click, and he had it." William Beall stated that he used an aperture of f16, and a shutter speed of 1/100th of a second.[1] One description of the image states that the boy (Allan Weaver) wanted to get closer to the parade in order to see the dancing dragons and the police officer told him to stop because of traffic and firecrackers.[4] The boy's father was a Marine, stationed in Japan. The boy in the image, Allan Weaver, described what happened in the image, "As a policeman came, I leaned up and asked him if he was a Marine."[1]

The jury for the Pulitzer Prize in 1958 consisted of Vincent Jones, Julius H. Klyman and Ralph McGill.[2] The members of the jury were unimpressed by the entries and they said there was no single image that was outstanding. When Beall won the award it was the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation J. Edgar Hoover who said Faith and Confidence deserved the Pulitzer.[5] The description of the image on The Pulitzer Prizes website states Faith and Confidence, [shows] a policeman patiently reasoning with two-year-old boy trying to cross a street during a parade.[2] The jury also said the photo was an appealing image which made a profound impression on readers... freezing forever a moment of childhood innocence"?[5]

Reception

Beall titled the image Faith and Confidence and it stirred emotion. Some people wrote poems and some who saw the image said it made them cry. Some people wrote letters to the police officer in the image, Cullinane, in care of the police department. Maurice Cullinane went on to become the Chief of police in 1974. The photograph has been made into a public sculpture and it is displayed in Jonesboro, Georgia.[1][6]

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Kelly, John (19 May 2023). "Meet the people behind a famous D.C. photo". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on 16 August 2018. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  2. 1 2 3 "William C. Beall of Washington (DC) Daily News". www.pulitzer.org. The Pulitzer Prizes. Archived from the original on 2022-10-16. Retrieved 2023-12-27.
  3. ↑ "The Pulitzer Prize Photographs NCSU Libraries, 2003". www.lib.ncsu.edu. NCSU Libraries. 10 May 2003. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  4. ↑ Fischer, Heinz-Dietrich; Fischer, Erika J. (12 June 2017). Press Photography Award 1942–1998: From Joe Rosenthal and Horst Faas to Moneta Sleet and Stan Grossfeld. Republic of Germany: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG. pp. 37, 38. ISBN 978-3-11-095576-7. Retrieved 27 December 2023.
  5. 1 2 Fischer, Heinz Dietrich (2011). Picture Coverage of the World: Pulitzer Prize Winning Photos. Piscataway, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers. ISBN 978-3-643-10844-9. Archived from the original on 28 December 2023. Retrieved 28 December 2023.
  6. ↑ "Maurice J. Cullinane". mpdc.dc.gov. District of Columbia. Archived from the original on 2023-12-27. Retrieved 2023-12-27.
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