Bruce Davidson: Thoughts On A Lifetime With Leica

Well, there are two things I’ve never done: I’ve never been under fire in a war and I never learned how to open my eyes underwater. For example, I had a fashion assignment on the beaches of Miami, but there were Portuguese Man O’ War jellyfish so we couldn’t jump into the surf as planned. So the art director said to me, “Bruce, let’s rent a motel pool,” and I said, “That’s a great idea!” He replied, “OK, I’ll rent an underwater camera.” I dove in with this waterproof camera to take pictures of these actors playing with the new fashionable stretch fabric clothing, but I never opened my eyes underwater. When I got out of the water, the actors asked how it looked and I said, “It’s beautiful!”  When the pictures were edited, there were headless people — headless children without arms, women with half their heads gone, etc. The art director said, “This is brilliant work. This is superb! How did you do it?” I never told them, to this day, that I had never seen a thing