In "Regarding the Pain of Others" (2003), Susan Sontag was disturbed by what she saw as Loan's staging of the execution in the street for journalists' photographs. She wrote that "he would not have carried out the summary execution there had they not been available to witness it" and positioned himself in profile view with the prisoner facing the cameras. However, Donald Winslow of "The New York Times" quoted Adams as having described the image as a "reflex picture" and "wasn't certain of what he'd photographed until the film was developed". Furthermore, Winslow noted that Adams "wanted me to understand that 'Saigon Execution' was not his most important picture and that he did not want his obituary to begin, 'Eddie Adams, the photographer best known for his iconic Vietnam photograph 'Saigon Execution.