1950s – Documentary Shooters

1950s, Civil Rights, Culture

NORTH CAROLINA

January 14, 2026 No Comments

Elliott Erwitt, North Carolina, 1950

Text by Bruce Berman
Elliott Erwitt is most generally known for his witty, funny –some say slapstick– photographs. He was a working photographer represented by the seminal photo agency, Magnum. As such he did everything from general photojournalism for the great magazines of the era, such as Collier’s, Look, Life, and Holiday, capturing iconic moments for travel, products, and country features during the golden age of illustrated magazines.
He is less known for his photojournalism, especially his important work on the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s.

1950s, Art, Photography, Uncategorized

FRANZ MARC, INGE MORATH AND THE BLUE HORSE

December 26, 2022 No Comments

The power of unintended consequences. Inge Morath, an early chosen photographer at Magnum, first became interested in Art at the Nazi’ exhibition Entartete Kunst (Degenerate Art) in Munich in July 1937. The exhibit was meant to be a disparagement of “modern art,” and was championed and attended by Hitler and other Nazi Party luminaries.
For some the consequence was the oppoosite of their intentions. One of those was the young Inge Morath, a fourteen year old Austrian girl. It was her first encounter with a art and as opposed to being opposed to the art she encountered, she loved and in particular the art of German artist Franz Marc‘s Blue Horse.

INFO on Franz Marc:
https://www.thehistoryofart.org/franz-marc/blue-horse/

https://bit.ly/3I4VD3l

Mask Series, Los Angeles by Inge Morath, no date

1950s, New York City, Photography

INGE MORATH

December 22, 2022 No Comments

USA. New York. Manhattan. 1957. A Llama in Time Square.©Inge Morath/MAGNUM PHOTOS

Inge Morath was born in Graz, Austria, in 1923. After studying languages in Berlin, she became a translator, then a journalist and the Austrian editor for Heute, an Information Service Branch publication based in Munich. All her life Morath would remain a prolific diarist and letter-writer, retaining a dual gift for words and pictures that made her unusual among her colleagues.
Morath was invited to join Magnum photo agency in 1953 at the invitation of reknowned photojournalist Henri Cartier-Bresson. She married playwright Arthur Miller in 1962 and remained his wife until her passing in 2002.

CONTACT SHEET FROM HER SHOOT:

USA. New York City. 1957. A Llama in Time Square.

FOR MORE: https://www.ingemorath.org/

1950s, History, Photography

WE LOVE WHAT’S REAL

May 27, 2021 No Comments

1950 Kodak Duaflex camera by Kodak

Text/Photography by Bruce Berman

The Kodak Duaflex is a 620 roll film pseudo TLR made by Kodak in the US, Canada, and UK. The original versions were available from December 1947 – September 1950 in the US, and 1949-1955 in the UK; the Duaflex IV was finally discontinued in the US in March 1960.
It was real.
If film is still made it will shoot. It feels good in the hand and the eye.
It is not plastic.