August 8, 2017

Late last month, on July 28, legendary American photographic editor John Morris died at a hospital near his home in Paris, France. A longtime editor for magazines, newspapers, and the famous Magnum Photos cooperative, Morris commissioned and published some of the most iconic photographs of the 1900’s. He was 100 years old.

John Morris attends the 2010 International Center of Photography Infinity Awards in New York City. Credit: © Theo Wargo, Getty Images

John Godfrey Morris was born on Dec. 7, 1916, in Maple Shade, New Jersey. Morris grew up in Chicago, where he attended the University of Chicago. As a student, Morris helped found and edit a university publication modeled on Life magazine—one of the era’s most popular illustrated publications.

After graduating in 1938, Morris began working for Time-Life publications in New York City. After the outbreak of World War II (1939-1945), Morris went to London, where he edited the many war photos going into Life’s weekly editions. On June 7, 1944, he edited the stirring images captured by Robert Capa the day before as the famous photographer hit the beaches of Normandy, France, with the U.S. Army on D-day. Before the invention of digital photography, photographers in the field rarely saw their developed images. It was up to a photo editor to process the photographer’s film and select, crop, and otherwise edit the photographs for publication.

After the war, Morris returned to New York City, where he worked as photo editor for the Ladies’ Home Journal, the biggest selling magazine at the time. One of his most ambitious projects there was sending Capa and author John Steinbeck to report on conditions in the Soviet Union. In 1953, Morris became executive editor of Magnum Photos, a cooperative created by Capa and others to help photographers sell their work while keeping copyright control. At the time, Magnum employed such photography stars as Capa, Eve Arnold, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Alfred Eisenstaedt, David Seymour, and W. Eugene Smith. Today, Magnum continues to be one of the world’s preeminent photographic agencies.

Morris served briefly as photo editor for The Washington Post before joining The New York Times in 1967, during the Vietnam War (1957-1975). In 1968, Morris insisted a graphic photograph of the execution of a Viet Cong prisoner run on the front page of the Times—a photograph many credit with help turning public opinion against the war. In 1972, Morris published another now-famous photo showing screaming Vietnamese children fleeing a napalm attack. Those two Vietnam War images both won the Pulitzer Prize. “I have always believed in showing how ugly war is,” Morris said, “and I have encouraged newspapers to take a realistic view of war.”

Morris later moved to Paris, where he worked for National Geographic before retiring in 1989. In his later years, Morris worked with young photographers and often spoke about his long career and of his experiences with some of the world’s greatest photographers. Oddly enough, Morris himself rarely took photos, but his editorial vision helped create and define modern photojournalism.

July 26, 2017

Eighty years ago today, German photographer Gerda Taro was killed covering the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Taro, a close friend and colleague of famed photographer Robert Capa, was the first woman war correspondent killed on assignment. She died during the Battle of Brunete on July 26, 1937, just a few days before her 27^th birthday.

Gerda Taro and Robert Capa laugh over a drink in 1936. Eighty years ago today, on July 26, 1937, Taro was killed covering the Spanish Civil War. Credit: © Fred Stein Archive/Getty Images

Taro was born Gerta Pohorylle on Aug. 1, 1910, into a Polish-Jewish family in Stuttgart, Germany. In 1933, she fled Germany to escape the anti-Semitism of the Nazis, who had recently come to power with Adolf Hitler. Pohorylle settled in Paris, France, where she befriended Capa, himself a Jewish immigrant who had fled persecution in Hungary. Capa, then known as André Friedmann, had just begun his career as a news photographer. He taught Pohorylle all he knew, and the two soon became a team covering assignments together. Soon after they began collaborating, they changed their names to increase their individual marketability.

In 1936, Taro and Capa went to Spain to cover the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War. The pair traveled with the government’s liberal Republican forces (they were fighting against fascist Nationalist rebels), and they covered numerous battles. Often working at or near the front lines, Taro and Capa were in near-constant danger. Taro became known for her daring behavior, often risking her life for a good photograph. She believed passionately in the fight against fascism; she felt that meaningful photographs would gain more worldwide support for the Spanish Republican cause.

In July 1937, Capa returned to Paris to develop and sell their photographs. At the same time, Republican and Nationalist forces were engaged in a bloody battle for the town of Brunete just west of Madrid, the Spanish capital. Taro, working with Canadian photographer Ted Allan while Capa was away, took numerous photos during the fighting at Brunete. On July 25, she and Allan jumped on the running boards of a car carrying wounded soldiers away from the front. The car collided with an out-of-control Republican tank, and both Taro and Allan were severely injured. Allan survived his wounds, but Taro died the next morning.

Thousands of people attended Taro’s funeral in Paris, including a distraught and grief-stricken Robert Capa. Taro was eulogized in the press, and she became a heroine of liberal causes in both France and Spain. World events soon eclipsed Taro’s fame, however, as the fascist Nationalists won the Spanish Civil War in April 1939—with much help from Nazi Germany, a nation whose attack on Poland started World War II a few months later. Capa’s fame greatly increased during World War II as he photographed the fighting in China and then in North Africa and Europe. Capa too was killed on assignment while covering the Indochina War in 1954.