Category: Obituaries

Paul Marchand 1962 – 2009

Gary Knight :

Like many French journalists and photographers Paul Marchand drove a small car – often liberated from a car hire company – at a time when many English speaking journalists were choosing armoured cars. As protection he had a handwritten sign on his rear window saying “Don’t shoot me – I am invincible”. Well, he was invincible, until he was – perhaps inevitably – shot. Shot in the arm by a 50 calibre machine gun at Sarajevo airport. He lost a few inches of arm but his enthusiasm remained undeterred and his behaviour was unchanged.

June 24, 2009
Pioneering Mozambique Photojournalist Dies

PDNPulse:

Photojournalist Ricardo Rangel, an influential Mozambican photographer whose work was part of several international exhibitions in recent years, died Thursday at age 85, according to press reports.

June 12, 2009
Jean-Claude Lozouet, Stock Photo Pioneer, Was Aboard Lost Air France Jet

PDN

June 12, 2009
Obituary: Lucien Aigner

The Independent:

The seminal German picture magazines of the early Thirties and the invention of a small camera, the Leica, spawned a select group of key photographers: Erich Salomon, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Robert Capa and Henri Cartier-Bresson. Lucien Aigner is of that vintage, but is one of the least known “pioneers of photojournalism”.

It was the acknowledged “god- father of photojournalism”, Stefan Lorant, who commented of his fellow countryman: “What sets him apart from other ‘picture takers’ is his fervent dedication to his work. He belongs to a minuscule band of camera artists who do not press the button in a mad rush but ponder and think before they let the shutter go.”

June 7, 2009
Hugh Van Es: R.I. in f*****g P.

Kees Metselaar and Vaudine England – The Digital Journalist:

When we heard that our best friend, Hugh van Es, had gone to hospital after suffering a huge cerebral hemorrhage, we were in Amsterdam – where Hugh had first worked as a news photographer back in 1959. We promptly went to one of his favorite ‘brown cafés’ to think through what it all meant.

We were not alone.

June 7, 2009
PDNPulse: New York Photographer and Author Norman Snyder Dies

PDNPulse: New York Photographer and Author Norman Snyder Dies says:

Norman Snyder, a photographer who wrote The Photography Catalog, a 1976 book of equipment and advice, died May 28. He was 72 and lived in Manhattan.

June 3, 2009
Benjamen Chinn dies at 87; photographer documented San Francisco's Chinatown

Los Angeles Times says:

Chinn was among the very few Chinese Americans to capture street scenes in the famous neighborhood. His most productive years were from 1947 to 1949.

Via PDNPulse

May 26, 2009
Hugh Van Es, Photojournalist Who Covered Vietnam, Dies at 67

says:

The photo became one of the war’s defining images. Mr. Van Es took other memorable pictures of the conflict, like one of a wounded soldier, a cross gleaming against his silhouette, from the battle of Hamburger Hill in May 1969. He gained a reputation for fearlessness. But for the rest of his life he was known primarily for that image from Saigon

May 16, 2009
The Online Photographer: A Wise, Iconoclastic Voice

The Online Photographer says:

It is a fine day in May, and the trees are leafing out, showing the bright tender green I associate with newness, and the sun is shining, and the news from Costa Rica is that Bill Jay has died in his sleep.

viaKen Jarecke

May 15, 2009
PDNPulse: Hugh Van Es, Fall of Saigon Photographer, Dies at 67

PDNPulse says:

Dutch photojournalist Hubert Van Es, best known for a photo of a rooftop helicopter evacuation during the fall of Saigon in 1975, died Friday morning in Hong Kong.

May 15, 2009
Blood Is Not Thicker Than Water: On The Death Of My Friend Raza Khan

The Spinning Head says:

Raza was my rock. He was my eyes and ears on the dangerous Pakistani frontier with Afghanistan. He was the only person in Pakistan I trusted with my life and I repeatedly placed it in his hands. He never ever let me down.

He was officially a fixer, but Raza Khan was far, far more than that.

May 13, 2009
We’ve Lost One Of Our Own :: Frank Mullen

Zack Arias says:

Y’all, we’ve lost one of our own this week.

Local Atlanta music photographer, Frank Mullen, lost his battle with cancer this week.

May 11, 2009
Paul Haven R.I.P.

Glen E. Friedman says:

Who was Paul Haven? He was the art director at SkateBoarder magazine during it’s entire run in the 70’s, right through the last issue of Action Nowmagazine in the early 80’s.

May 6, 2009
Saddened By The Death of Ian Talty

From Wooster Collective:

We’re extremely saddened to learn this morning of the death of Ian Talty, a photographer known for shooting amazing photographs of graffiti in and around St. Paul, Minnesota.

Check it out here.

April 28, 2009
SuperTouch » IN LOVING MEMORY OF PHOTOGRAPHER SHAWN MORTENSEN 1966—2009

From SuperTouch:

It is truly with a heavy heart that we must break the news that one of Supertouch’s dear friends, photographer SHAWN MORTENSEN, passed away last nite. A kinetic force of optimism and seemingly limitless positive energy, Shawn’s hearty career as a photojournalist and artist took him around the world several times over, unselfishly spreading his endless supply of good vibes as he went.

Check it out here.

April 17, 2009
Obituary: Peter Goldfield

From Obituary: Peter Goldfield | The Guardian:

Peter Goldfield, who has died of heart failure aged 63, was the godfather of independent photography in Britain, where he and his great friend Paul Hill started the idea of photography workshops.

Check it out here.

April 10, 2009
Helen Levitt Captured Perfect Moments, Unnoticed : NPR

And she talked some about walking around the streets of New York and how she could capture those moments unnoticed.

“I had attached to my camera — I had a little device that fit on the Leica camera that they called a winkelsucher, which meant that you could look one way and take the picture the other,” she said. “You could turn your camera sideways.”

Check it out here.

March 31, 2009
Helen Levitt, Who Captured New York Street Life, Dies at 95 – Obituary (Obit) – NYTimes.com

Ms. Levitt captured instances of a cinematic and delightfully guileless form of street choreography that held at its heart, as William Butler Yeats put it, “the ceremony of innocence.” A man handles garbage-can lids like an exuberant child imitating a master juggler. Even an inanimate object — a broken record — appears to skip and dance on an empty street as a child might, observed by a group of women’s dresses in a shop window.

Check it out here.

March 30, 2009
Helen Levitt, 95, master of street photography – The Boston Globe

The critic Adam Gopnik, writing in The New Yorker in 2001, described Ms. Levitt as ”the supreme poet-photographer of the streets and people of New York.”

Check it out here.

March 30, 2009
Pirkle Jones, Photojournalist, Dies at 95 – Obituary (Obit) – NYTimes.com

Pirkle Jones, whose images of migrant farm workers, threatened California towns and valleys and the Black Panthers at the peak of their power made him one of the most admired photographers of his generation, died on March 15 in San Rafael, Calif. He was 95 and lived in Mill Valley, Calif.

Check it out here.

Via PopPoto.

March 23, 2009