Friday 13 March 2009

The Friday Picture(s)


*Margaret Bourke-White positioning her camera atop the Chrysler Building taken by her assistant Oscar Graubner*

Margaret Bourke-White (1904-1971) was an American photographer and photo-journalist. She was an amazing talent with a remarkable career. In 1927, aged 23 she opened a commercial photography studio, two years later she was hired as as associate editor of Fortune magazine and a year later she became the first Western photographer allowed into the Soviet Union and was hired by Life magazine. In the 1930's she travelled extensively through Europe to record the impact of Nazism and Communism. When World War Two broke out in 1939 she became the first female war correspondent and the first woman to be permitted to work in combat zones in that conflict. She repeatedly came under fire, was torpedoed in the Mediterranean and left stranded in the arctic - no surprise then that she earned the title Maggie The Indestructible! She photographed Stalin, Gandhi (famously only hours before he was assassinated) and was one of the first people to photograph Buchenwald. Of this last experience she is quoted as saying "Using a camera was almost a relief. It interposed a slight barrier between myself and the horror in front of me." . Here are just a few of her many remarkable photographs:


*New York 1939*


*Nuremberg 1945*

*Mahatma Gandhi 1946*

3 comments:

CathM said...

What great images! Thanks for the introduction to Margaret Bourke-White as I'd never heard of her. I do have a keen interest in photography (well, other people's work really!)

Wallflower Diaries said...

I love Margaret Bourke-White's pictures. Did you ever notice in the movie What Woman Want Helen Hunt has a great collection of her photos in her office? Thanks for posting them:)

The Cwtch said...

I think she's amazing! Not just for the images she produced but also as a true adventurer and pioneer in the mostly male world of photography at that time. Imagine being at the heart of all of those world events and with the skill to document them so beautifully...

I haven't seen What Women Want Peony but that is a good fact! Top marks for observation!