Saturday, June 26, 2021

Amalie R. Rothschild, photographer at Fillmore East, recalls brief but legendary run

 Via Fox 5 New York

June 24, 2021

Photographer at Fillmore East recalls brief but legendary run



NEW YORK - Sunday marks the 50th anniversary of the last shows performed at the legendary Fillmore East music hall where the likes of The Grateful Dead and the Beach Boys once played. 

The Fillmore is now a bank but its heyday- as a prime music venue- is remembered by resident photographer Amalie Rothschild.

I was a fly on the wall," said Rothschild. "I really didn’t want to be hit on. I wasn’t looking to hook up and my cameras were shields. I was serious. I was an artist. A photographer. I didn’t have the kind of confidence as a young woman yet, but I had the right mentality."

During its’ brief but legendary three-year run from 1968 – 1971, the roughly 2,600 seat Fillmore East in the East Village played host to a who’s who of legendary performers. Elton John, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, The Who, and the Allman Brothers just to name a few. 

Rothschild was, in essence, the venue’s house photographer.

"When the Fillmore opened. The tickets were $3, $4 and $5. And when they closed it was $3.50, $4.50 and $5.50, said Rothschild.

Tickets to similar see bands with similar star power today would cost $500.

"And the first tickets to sell out were the last four rows in the balcony, in the top of the balcony," added Rothschild.

Rothschild, who has enjoyed a long successful career as a photographer and filmmaker, captured some of her most famous photos during a Thanksgiving Day Rolling Stones Show in 1969 at Madison Square Garden. Ike and Tina Turner opened and Janis Joplin made an unexpected cameo onstage.

black and white photo of Janis Joplin and Tina Turner, Madison Square Garden,
Amalie R. Rothschild


"Before they went on, Janis was just standing at the side of the stage with a few friends and right as I pulled the shutter I saw someone walk into the frame and when I developed the film and developed the contact sheet, I went ‘oh" because the person who walked in was Jimi Hendrix," said Rothschild.

Historical in more ways than one. Once bands like the Rolling Stones made their leap to arenas, making more money playing fewer shows to bigger audiences, the days of smaller theaters like the Fillmore were numbered.

In April of 1971, promoter Bill Graham announced he was shutting the venue.

"No one had any clue. It was a terrible shock for the staff to take in. He could’ve kept it going for a few more years but it wouldn’t be the same," said Rothschild.

The final show was a sendoff for the ages. A June 27 1971 all-night show headlined by the house favorites, the Allman Brothers.

"As you know no one wanted it to end.. and one of my favorite pictures of the Beach Boys is that I was able to catch all of them onstage with Bill Graham behind a speaker column watching them onstage.... it went until dawn and we walked out and the sun was out and everybody was crying and we went to Ratner’s for breakfast and it was a real tear-jerker and real difficult.'

Wednesday, June 23, 2021

Photography Daily Podcast: Ryan Vizzionson Van Life With A Camera

 

photo of Wild Mustangs in Utah
©Ryan Vizzions: Wild Mustangs, Utah, 2021

Via Photography Daily
STORIES OF LIFE, TOLD BY PHOTOGRAPHERS
VAN LIFING WITH A CAMERA - BEST JOB EVER!
June 23, 2021

Photojournalist Ryan Vizzions excites us about being on the open road in a van, photographing every American state to produce the most remarkable life experience book. We talk about escapism, freedom, mental health, the wonder of making photographs, solitude, social media, the human spirit and how being on the road affects basic instinct and needs such as sleep. But he’s not doing this entirely alone, as you’ll find out. Ryan has been a guest once before when he talked of pictures about protest and tomorrow on the Thursday Patreon show, he talks about the most precious picture made so far, one of which you can see below; the Mustangs in Utah. Follow him on the road through his Twitter feed.




Ryan Vizzions photographs are included in the current exhibition Present Tense, and you can view his full collection here.

Saturday, June 19, 2021

Richard B. Stolley, a journalist who left an indelible imprint on two of the most influential American magazines of the 20th century and secured J.F.K. film, dies at 92

The Washington Post:

 Richard B. Stolley, a journalist who left an indelible imprint on two of the most influential American magazines of the 20th century, obtaining a copy of the Zapruder film footage of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination for Life in 1963 and later building a newsstand juggernaut as the founding editor of People, died June 16 at a hospital in Evanston, Ill. He was 92



Dick Stolley with photographer Tony Vaccaro n Santa Fe in 2017
Richard Stolley (left), former Time magazine bureau chief, and Assistant Managing Editor and Managing Editor of Life magazine, led a Q & A with photographer Tony Vaccaro (right) following the screening of the film "Underfire: The Untold Story of Pfc. Tony Vaccaro" in 2017 in Santa Fe.


Dick Stolley with photographer Bill Eppridge at the 2011 Lucie Awards

Dick Stolley (right) is pictured here with photojournalist Bill Eppridge (left) at the 2011 Lucie Awards, where Eppridge received the Award for Achievement in Photojournalism. One of Eppridge's most memorable and poignant essays was his coverage of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, including the iconic photograph of the wounded Senator on the floor of the Ambassador Hotel kitchen seconds after he was shot
Life photographer Bob Gomel, Hal Wingo, journalist and editor at LIFE and PEOPLE WEEKLY magazines, and Michelle and Sid Monroe at the Monroe Gallery of Photography.



Richard Stolley, the Man Who Launched PEOPLE Magazine, Dies at 92


Santa Fean recalls day he secured rights to video of JFK assassination  


Friday, June 18, 2021

Present Tense at Monroe Gallery of Photography

 

color photograph of US Capitol behind fence after January 6 insurrection
Ryan Vizzions, The Nation’s Capitol, Washington DC, January 13, 2021 (2021)


Via Pasatiempo, The Santa Fe New Mexican

June 18, 2021

Michael Abatemarco

Staff Writer


Photography is among the most essential messaging tools for documenting the extraordinary political, social, and economic events of contemporary times. The group exhibition Present Tense, Monroe Gallery of Photography features images that were all taken in the past few years and that underscore the upheaval and intimate and public dramas occurring in the social spheres as captured by a new wave of independent photojournalists. Images include the 2017 white supremacist tiki-torch rally at the University of Virginia, the protests at the Standing Rock Indian Reservation, the January 6 storming of the United States Capitol, the protests that followed the police killings of Michael Brown and George Floyd. Photographers include Ryan Vizzions, David Butow, Ashley Gilbertson, Sanjay Suchak, and Gabriela Campos. The exhibition is currently on view and runs through Aug. 22.


Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar Ave., 505-992-0800, monroegallery.com

Thursday, June 17, 2021

Present Tense (Photography Show)

 

photograph of National Guard resting in US Capitol on January 13, 2021

Via The Santa Fe Reporter

Present Tense (Photography Show)

 Monroe Gallery of Photography

Fri, Jun 18 - Aug 22, 2021


FULL DESCRIPTION

A significant exhibition documenting recent extraordinary political, social, and economic events, including the COVID-19 Pandemic.

For 20 years, Monroe Gallery of Photography has presented visual moments indispensable to an understanding of 20th- and 21st-century societal and political change. PRESENT TENSE, however, is entirely unique in the Gallery’s history: its first multi-photojournalist presentation of age- and perception-changing news events of just the last few years, as well as a celebration of the new wave of independent photojournalists who are battling both real situational danger and gathering selective public denial of journalism broadly.

Depicting moments both momentous and intimate, but all radiating with meaning, PRESENT TENSE was conceived as a collective way of briefly pausing the roil and rush of virtual imagery we are all subject to—a storm of constantly flickering perceptions—and recognize, through painstakingly curated photographs, that we are living in an epoch-changing history in terms of societal understanding, betterment, and, ultimately, survivability.


Monroe Gallery of Photography

112 Don Gaspar Ave. Santa Fe NM 87501

www.monroegallery.com

505-992-0800


Watch a brief video introduction to the exhibit on YouTube here.

Wednesday, June 16, 2021

"Life Is Wonderfull" showcases the life's work of 98-year-old top photographer Tony Vaccaro from World War II to fashion and art

 

Via YLE (translated from Finnish)

June 13, 2021

BY STINA  ALAPIRTTI


Art Hall's summer exhibition is about war, love and Marimekko – a 98-year-old American photographer dreamed of an exhibition in Finland for a long time

The exhibition, called Life Is Wonderful, showcases the life's work of 98-year-old top photographer Tony Vaccaro from World War II to fashion and art. There are also plenty of pictures of Finland and Marimekko in the 1960s.


color photograph of Merimekko models with umbrellas


Tony Vaccaro came to Finland to film Marimekko for LIFE magazine in 1965. He photographed both Marimekko's fashion in Porvoo and Helsinki, as in this photo, and the fashion house's behind-the-scenes activities. Photo: Tony Vaccaro / Art Hall
Helsinki Art Hall is a life of history in itself, but photographs from the middle of the 20th century bring a new layer to it. In the photographs, world stars, soldiers and models come to life for a moment, as if there were small windows to the past on the walls. One room is dedicated entirely to Marimekko, who turns 70 this year.
Photographer Tony Vaccaro's exhibition will be on display at the Helsinki Art Hall during the summer Life is wonderful. Vaccaro is a 98-year-old American-Italian photographer who began his career filming on the front in World War II. He still works even though he retired officially as early as the 1980s.

Exhibition Manager Eeva Holkeri from The Art Hall of Helsinki says that Vaccaro has wanted to get the exhibition to Finland for a long time. Life is wonderful is his first extensive exhibition here.

"Vaccaro has a connection to Finland through his late wife Anja Vaccaro, but also through Marimekko. The gallery representing Vaccaro was asked if such an exhibition would succeed," Holkeri says.

Anja Vaccaro was related to Lehto. The photographer and Lehto, who worked as Marimekko's model, fell in love on the set of Marimekko.

Vaccaro's studio is now run by Vaccaro and Lehto's son Frank Vaccaro and his wife. 

The exhibition contains 130 photographs from Vaccaro's nearly 80-year career. According to Holker, the demarcation was a challenging task, but at present the exhibition creates a comprehensive picture of Vaccaro's production from the 1940s until the 1970s.

The pictures will be available at the Helsinki Art Hall in Töölö on 8 May. Until 18 August.
Eeva Holker, in front of a Tony Vaccaro photograph

According to exhibition manager Eeva Holker, the Life is Wonderful exhibition shows a cross-section of Vaccaro's entire production. In the background, a fashion photo taken by Vaccaro. 
Photo: Terhi Liimu / Yle

Tough background

Michael "Tony" Vaccaro was born in 1922 in Pennsylvania, USA to immigrant parents from Italy. The family soon moved back to Italy, where they were met with great grief. Both parents passed away and Tony Vaccaro was orphaned at the age of four. Her sister was put in an orphanage, and little Tony was brought to her uncle's farm to be raised by her grandmother and uncle. Uncle abused Tony, who also had to work on the farm.
 
Tony Vaccaro left for the United States at the age of just 17, in the run-up to World War II in 1939. The departure was partly influenced by the fascism that invaded Italy. In the United States, Vaccaro went to high school and joined the army. He was sent to the front in 1944.

Vaccaro was interested in photography at school and bought his first camera in 1942. In the war, he was sent to the front line, and Vaccaro took about 8,000 photographs in the midst of the war. After the war ended, he stayed in Europe to photograph the trail and reconstruction of the war and returned to the United States in 1949.
black and white photograph of american soldiers celebrating in Nice, France, 1947
Vaccaro fought in World War II and stayed after peace came to describe the reconstruction of Europe. This picture is from Nice, France dating back to 1947. Photo: Tony Vaccaro / Art Hall


Although the first half of Vaccaro's life was fraught with difficulties, even war, according to Eeva Holker, she has still maintained a bright attitude to life and a quest for beauty.

"Even though Vaccaro started his career in The Second World War, his pictures show hope, joy and a glimpse of positivity. It seems justified to say that Vaccaro's attitude to life is that life is wonderful," Holkeri says.

Celebrity photographer

Vaccaro is especially well known as a fashion and lifestyle photographer. He filmed for several of the most important US period publications of that time, such as Life and Harper's Bazaar. The exhibition features pictures he took of public figures from the 1960s and 1970s, including Pablo Picasso, Muhammad Ali, Leonard Cohen, Jackson Pollock and Sophia Loren.
Georgia O'Keeffe holding her "Pelvis series" painting outdoors
A picture taken by Vaccaro of artist Georgia O' Keeffe in front of her work. Vaccaro spent a long time with Georgia O'Keeffe in New Mexico in 1960. Photo: Tony Vaccaro / Art Hall

A large part of the exhibition consists of pictures Vaccaro took of Marimekko's activities and fashion in 1965. Vaccaro came to Finland to describe Marimekko, who has become a phenomenon around the world, for Life magazine.

color photograph of Merimekko models on logs

Marimekko was founded in 1951 and became an international phenomenon in the 1960s. Vaccaro photographed a fashion house in Porvoo and Helsinki in 1965. The photo shows models in Marimekko's clothes. Photo: Tony Vaccaro / Art Hall


Vaccaro photographed Finnish models in Porvoo and Helsinki, and in the pictures Marimekko's colourful dresses glow against the rainy industrial landscape and the models play in Finnish nature and on the streets of Helsinki.The pictures also show Vaccaro's future wife at the time: Finnish model Anja Kyllikki Lehto. Lehto and Vaccaro had met in 1963 in New York on Marimekko's business trip, on which Vaccaro had photographed Lehto."It is said that it was love at first sight. When Tony saw Anja, she knew she never wanted to let this go. Pictures of Anja show love, Holkeri says.Vaccaro and Lehto were married until 1979. They had two sons together. Lehto died in 2013.


color photograph of Tony Vaccaro's wife, Anja, in front of Orange tree

This picture, called Anja and oranges, was shot in Ischia, Italy, in 1964. The photo shows Vaccaro's spouse Anja Kyllikki Lehto, later Vaccaro. Photo: Tony Vaccaro / Art Hall
View available original prints from Tony Vaccaro here

Sunday, June 13, 2021

TENSE MOMENTS: Photography exhibit looks at current news events that have impacted the era

 


Via The Albuquerque Journal

Sunday, June 13, 2021

By Kathaleen Roberts




National Guardsmen rest in Capitol after insurrection
David Butow. U.S. Capitol, defenders of democracy, Washington, D.C., Jan. 13, 2021. 
(Courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography)

In a time ravaged by a pandemic, an insurrection and police killings of Black citizens, Monroe Gallery of Photography will show a series capturing it all.

For 20 years, the gallery has hung mainly historic photographs by such legends as Margaret Bourke-White, Harry Benson and Tony Vaccaro, although it has long included current work in its group shows. Past exhibits have paired Black Lives Matter images with photographs of the 1964 Selma March.

Opening June 18, “Present Tense” marks Monroe’s first multi-journalist exhibition of current news events during this epoch-changing era. It was time to pause the rush of virtual imagery with its storm of constantly flickering perceptions, gallery co-owner Michelle Monroe said.


Insurrectionists in the Rotunda of US Capitol

Ashley Gilbertson. A mixture of tear gas discharged by police and fire extinguisher residue discharged by pro-Trump extremists hangs in the air of the Rotunda as the crowd milled about, Jan. 6, 2021. (Courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography)


“This is a first,” she said. “It seems obvious to us that we are living in a completely unique history. The question of survivability is upon us. We wanted people to stand before this moment and stay with it.”

David Butow’s print of National Guardsmen sprawled across the U.S. Capitol floor after the Jan. 6 insurrection coincidentally captured the New Mexico statue of Po’Pay, the leader of the 1680 Pueblo Revolt.

During the pandemic, Butow also shot an image of a masked couple walking the Hoboken, New Jersey boardwalk with an ominous Manhattan skyline in the background.

a masked couple strolls the boardwalk in Hoboken, New Jersey, during the COVID-19 pandemic

David Butow. With the skyline of lower Manhattan in the background, a couple strolls the boardwalk in Hoboken, New Jersey, during the COVID-19 pandemic, April 18, 2020. (Courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography)


The hazy light in Ashley Gilbertson’s image of the Capitol Rotunda reveals a chilling truth.

“Ashley said the air inside was filled with teargas, bear spray and the fire extinguishers they had carried in,” co-owner Sidney Monroe said.

Gilbertson’s shot of Capitol Police Officer Eugene Goodman frames him in a doorway beneath the raised hands of insurrectionists.

“To the left of him you can see the stairway that he led them through away from the Senate,” Michelle Monroe said. “It recalls the man standing in front of the tanks at Tiananmen Square” in 1989.


US Capitol surrounded by fence after January 6 riot

Ryan Vizzions. The Nation’s Capitol, Washington, D.C., Jan. 13, 2021. (Courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography)


Gilbertson also captured the sense of desperation and despair in his photo of a food line in New York’s Chinatown during the pandemic.

Ryan Vizzions’ photo of the U.S. Capitol through its new fencing encapsulates the story of the insurrection’s aftermath. The photographer also shot an image of the late Civil Rights leader Sen. John Lewis marching in Atlanta.



A graduate with fist raised in fron of Robert E. Lee monument

Sanjay Suchak. The Graduate, Robert E. Lee Monument, Richmond, Virginia, June 8, 2020. (Courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography)


Sanjay Suchak’s eerie photo of Charlottesville marchers at the University of Virginia Rotunda appears almost reverent until you realize they are white supremacists. Suchak also produced a compelling image of a college graduate giving a triumphant Black Power salute in front of a graffiti-scrawled Robert E. Lee statue in Richmond, Virginia.


White Supremacists march at the Rotunda, Charlottesville, Virginia, Aug. 11, 2017

Sanjay Suchak. White Supremacists march at the Rotunda, Charlottesville, Virginia, Aug. 11, 2017. (Courtesy of Monroe Gallery of Photography)


New Mexico photographer Gabriela Campos shot a scene closer to home when she photographed an Ohkay Owingeh dancer atop the empty platform where a statue of Don Juan de Oñate once stood in Rio Arriba County. She also cemented a picture of COVID-19 exhaustion in her portrait of a trio of masked nurses at Santa Fe’s St. Vincent Regional Medical Center.

“The impact and urgency of some of these photographs were immediately iconic,” Sidney Monroe said. “Sometimes it takes decades. We don’t need to wait a decade to look back.”


If you go

WHAT: “Present Tense”

WHERE: Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar Ave., Santa Fe

WHEN: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily June 18 through Aug. 22

HOW MUCH: Free at 505-992-0800, monroegallery.com

Monday, May 31, 2021

Tony Vaccaro, who photographed World War II in Europe describes 6 of his photos that reveal the 'insanity of war'

 Via Business Insider

Memorial Day, May 31, 2021

photo of dead solding in WWII
A dead GI in Germany's Hurtgen Forest in 1944. 
Tony Vaccaro/Tony Vaccaro Studio


Michelantonio "Tony" Vaccaro wanted to serve his country with a camera during World War II, so he tried to join the US Army Signal Corps. But under Uncle Sam's rules, the 20-year-old draftee was too young for that branch.

So Vaccaro, the orphaned son of Italian immigrants, became a private first class in the 83rd Infantry Division. By June 1944, days after the first wave of 156,000 Allied troops descended on the beaches of Normandy, Vaccaro landed on Omaha Beach, where he saw row after row of dead soldiers in the sand.

Vaccaro was armed with an M1 rifle. He also brought along his personal camera: A relatively compact Argus C3 he'd purchased secondhand for $47.50 and had become fond of using as a high-school student in New York.

In addition to fighting on the front lines during the Battle of Normandy and the ensuing Allied advance, Vaccaro photographed what he was seeing. At night, he'd develop rolls of film, mixing chemicals in helmets borrowed from fellow soldiers. He'd hang the wet negatives on tree branches to dry and then carry them with him.

When he had enough to fill a package, he'd generally mail them home to his sisters in the US for safekeeping and to ensure the images would survive even if he did not.


Then-GI Tony Vaccaro on the wing of a B-17 Bomber in 1944.

                                Then-GI Tony Vaccaro on the wing of a B-17 Bomber in 1944. 

Tony Vaccaro/Tony Vaccaro Studio


From 1944 to 1945, he moved through France, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Germany.

Along the way, he took photographs that few others — even the press and Signal Corps photographers — were in a position to take: a fellow soldier's last step before shrapnel tore through him, a jubilant kiss between a GI and a young French girl in a newly liberated town, and many stomach-churning portraits of ransacked corpses that still haunt him.

During 272 days at war, he captured thousands of photos. After the Allied victory, he felt sickened and debilitated by the devastation he saw. He wasn't ready to return to the US. And he never wanted to photograph armed conflict again.

He bought a Jeep and traveled with his camera, eventually photographing brighter moments, like the reconstruction of Europe and the beauty in the lives of famous artists and everyday people.

Vaccaro went on to make a name as a fashion and culture photographer. He traveled the world shooting for magazines like Look and Life and taking portraits of bigwigs including John F. Kennedy, Pablo Picasso, Frank Lloyd Wright, Georgia O'Keeffe, and many more.

A half-century would pass before Vaccaro began publishing the bulk of his surviving wartime photos. The surviving images have been shared widely, including in the 2016 HBO documentary "Underfire: The Untold Story of PFC. Tony Vaccaro," in which Vaccaro revisits the history that he had to break Army rules to chronicle.


photo of Tony Vaccao in his studio


Tony Vaccaro. Manolo Salas/courtesy of Tony Vaccaro Studio


Vaccaro, now 98, survived a bout with COVID-19 last spring that put him in the hospital.

He continues roaming his neighborhood photographing everyday people and selling prints through Monroe Gallery of Photography. From his Queens, New York, studio more than seven decades after World War II, he closes his eyes and thinks of the brutality he documented as an infantryman.

"I see death," Vaccaro told Insider. "Death that should not happen."

Below, he describes six of his photos that he says capture "the insanity of war."


photo of dead soldir in snow


'White Death', Near Ottré, Belgium, January 1945.

Tony Vaccaro/Tony Vaccaro Studio


Vaccaro developed the roll containing this image while on leave in 1945. He remembers calling this photograph "Death In The Snow" at first, later deciding that "White Death" was a more "elegant" and fitting name to honor Pvt. Henry Tannenbaum's service and sacrifice. Tannenbaum was killed in action on January 11, 1945, during the Battle of the Bulge.

"When I first took this photo of a GI dead in the snow, I was not aware of who he was. What I did was to chip the snow away and look for his right arm, because in those days, [on] the right arm we carried our dog tags. He was Pvt. Henry Irving Tannenbaum. He was one of the soldiers who fought there, just like me. We fought in the snow. He died in the snow. He was my friend. I knew he had a son. … Many years later I got a call from his son."

dead burned soldier in WWII


'Gott Mit Uns', Hürtgen Forest, Germany, 1944

The burned body of a German tank driver, as seen through Vaccaro's lens.

Tony Vaccaro/Tony Vaccaro Studio

.

"He's burning. This was frontline. You can smell him. We knocked out his German tank. We knocked it out, and he jumped out of there and fell dead in front of us. He was the pilot of this tank. Similar age [to me]. Here he's gone. … But [before the photograph] I heard him scream, 'Muter, muter.' He was calling for his mother."

"I took cover [by lying down next to him] and read his belt buckle: 'Gott mit uns.' … It means 'God is with us.' [Before the war] I had seen people that die and go to the church, and from church they go to the cemetery, like my father when I was four. This was a different death."


soldier hit by shrapnel in WWII

'Final Steps of Jack Rose', Ottré, Belgium, January 11, 1945.

Tony Vaccaro/Tony Vaccaro Studio


Vaccaro captured this image of a soldier he identifies as US Army Pvt. 1st Class Jack Rose of the 83rd Infantry Division, still upright, just after shrapnel from a mortar explosion severed his spine. The explosion, visible between Rose and the fence, threw Vaccaro back many feet. Rose, 23, was killed in action.

"That was Jack Rose. The last step. I was photographing him when this shell comes and explodes. He got killed there, in the village. … The shell could have come to me, too. I was lucky."


battlefield scene in Rhineland in WWII


'Rhineland Battle', Near Walternienburg, Germany, April 1945.

Tony Vaccaro/Tony Vaccaro Studio


Vaccaro says the streaking on some of his war photos comes from the grueling conditions he was in — he didn't have time to properly process and store his work in combat — and possibly from water damage due to a flood in the office where the images were stored after the war.

"We were going forward when a shell comes in, in the back, and explodes. This was Rhineland Battle. I was in a hole as the mortar exploded. I raised my arm up with the camera in my hand above the hole to catch this picture. If that shell had come 20 yards over, I was with these two [soldiers seen in the picture], and my hole was here, and if the shell came [where the two soldiers were or where Vaccaro was], I wouldn't be here talking today."


dead soldier in WWII


The Family Back Home', Hürtgen Forest, Germany, January 1945.

Tony Vaccaro/Tony Vaccaro Studio



When Vaccaro encountered this dead German soldier, it appeared that other American soldiers had already looted his valuables.

"This is a man who we killed in frontline [fighting]. … That was it. The family back home. A dead German soldier with the pictures he was carrying of his family. … Of course I had photos of my family too. … It reminds me of the tragedy of mankind. He's not a German. He's a human being."

"We just must stop using 'I'm Italian. I'm French. I'm Spanish. I'm German.' That's what makes us enemies of each other. We're all humans. In Spain. In Germany. It's a terrible mistake that man has made. We are humans. And nothing else."

Defeated German soldier returns home after WW!


'Defeated Soldier', Frankfurt, Germany, March 1947.

Tony Vaccaro/Tony Vaccaro Studio



Vaccaro captured this image after the war, while photographing the reconstruction of Europe for Stars.

"This man came back [from being a prisoner of war in the US]. He's crying. … He gave up. You see where his family had been. The war is over. He came back, and his house had been destroyed. That's why I call this the defeated soldier. He was German. … Later I was told that he lived here."

"The point is, you see, on this Earth there is only one species, one church. Unfortunately we take this one species and create hundreds and thousands of churches, and each one is different from the next. And that's why man is not attaining peace yet."



View the Tiny Vaccaro collection here

Watch the video "Tony Vaccaro at 98" here 

Saturday, May 29, 2021

A Year of Unprecedented Violence Against Journalists

 

Via Freedom of The Press Foundation

photo of press and police with text



The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, a project of Freedom of the Press Foundation and Committee to Protect Journalists, has published an overview of a truly remarkable year’s worth of press freedom violations during nationwide protests since the police killing of George Floyd. Building on individually reported accounts of every journalist assault, arrest, damaged equipment, or other press freedom violations, the Tracker aims to provide the definitive telling of the crackdown on journalists that emerged alongside the protests.

As reporters covered the movement, they were subjected to more than 150 arrests or detainments, 580 physical attacks, and 112 incidents of damaged equipment. The phenomenon peaked last summer and has continued into 2021, which has seen two dozen arrests or detainments, nearly three dozen physical attacks, and 9 incidents of damaged equipment.

“To say the past year was a historic chapter in the story of press freedom in the United States would be an understatement. I had to stop using the word ‘unprecedented’ even as we reported out case numbers that were unlike any we’d ever seen,” said U.S. Press Freedom Tracker’s managing editor Kirstin McCudden. “But even after following each case as it developed, pulling together a full year of data paints a picture of American press freedom that is shocking and alarming.”

Follow the Tracker on Twitter at @uspresstracker


View Present Tense: A significant exhibition documenting recent extraordinary political, social, and economic events, including the Covid-19 Pandemic.