This Southern Belle's Musings

"Darlin', don't ever take a Southern woman for granted!" [tm]


         If you're visiting from BlogClicker, BlogAzoo, or BlogExplosion or any other click/surf engine, you're at http://asouthernbelle.blogspot.com





Tuesday, August 17, 2004

Life Photographer Dies 


A great photographer has passed.     For those interested, here is but one of a brief gallery of Mydans' work.     A search on the 'web will bring you many more.




Famed Life Magazine Photographer Dies

NEW YORK (AP) - Carl Mydans, who photographed 20th century events from the Great Depression to wars and politics and was a charter member of the Life magazine staff that pioneered magazine photojournalism, has died.     He was 97.

Mydans died Monday night of heart failure at his home in Larchmont, according to his son, Seth.

Mydans traveled the world with his cameras, witnessing and recording landmarks of history - the gaunt faces of 1930s dust-bowl farmers, Gen. Douglas MacArthur wading ashore on his return to the Philippines in 1944, Frenchwomen having their heads shaved as punishment for "collaboration" with the Nazis, and the Japanese surrender aboard the battleship USS Missouri a year later.

Among his more memorable photos was one showing homebound rail commuters on Nov. 22, 1963, reading newspapers with the headline "President Shot Dead."

His wife, Shelley Smith Mydans, was also a journalist, and they often teamed up.     During World War II, they were imprisoned by the Japanese for nearly two years.

His habit of carrying a camera enabled him to combine words and pictures; in later years as a photographer he was known for keeping detailed diaries, and he had a parallel career as an author of books.

Among these works was a 1959 book about photojournalism titled "More Than Meets the Eye," in which Mydans captured "the gut level sense of the small moment symbolizing a larger conflict," said Marianne Fulton, former curator of the George Eastman House collection in Rochester, N.Y.

Mydans first attracted attention in the mid-1930s for his work as a photographer for the federal Farm Security Administration.     His stark black-and-white portraits of Arkansas farm families dramatized the plight of rural people victimized by the Depression.

When Life magazine came into existence in 1936 as a bold new experiment in pictorial journalism, Mydans was the fifth photographer hired, joining icons Alfred Eisenstaedt, Margaret Bourke-White, Thomas McAvoy and Peter Stackpole on the staff that would set new standards for news and feature photography.

Mydans' first assignment was a photographic essay on the hardscrabble life in tiny Freer, Texas.

He met his wife in 1938. In 1941, they were assigned to cover the war in China and were in Manila, Philippines, when Pearl Harbor drew the United States into war with Japan.     Captured and imprisoned, Mydans later said he refused a Japanese offer of freedom if he would take photos for them.

Later moved to a prison in China, the couple were repatriated in a 1943 prisoner of war exchange.     Mydans returned to the war, this time in Europe where he covered Allied invasions in Italy and France.

At war's end he was back in China with forces that liberated Shanghai's notorious Lung Hwa prison.

Based in Tokyo, Mydans covered the postwar U.S. occupation, and the Korean War, and in subsequent years continued to roam the United States and the globe for Life.

Born May 18, 1907, Mydans grew up in Medford, Mass., and joined The Boston Globe as a reporter while still a student at Boston University.     In addition to his son, a New York Times reporter, Mydans is survived by a daughter, Misty Mydans.    His wife died two years ago.



As a photographer myself, I have been influenced by artists like Carl and Shelley Smith Mydans.     They captured pure, raw human drama in a time when the human element was a gripping view of the country in a different time.

current mood:    Admiration for creative genius
current music:    Silence
(c)   2004    A Southern Belle's Life





I'm a Member of the:
<< # Bitch Club ? >>

BlogRollin' other WebRing Members:










Harley-Davidson Motorcycles



Alabama Crimson Tide Football




blogger    haloscan    blogwise    Blogarama - The Blog Directory

    

Rate This Blog

BlogHop.com! the best pretty good okay pretty bad the worst




Site Meter    The Memes List, The World's Largest Listing Of Daily Memes, Weekly Memes, and Monthly Memes








Women Bloggers



<xBlogxPhilesx>








The Legal Stuff
2004 -2005 (C) Copyrighted Materials     All Rights Reserved.     Susan Reno-Gilliland     This Southern Belle's Life     No portion of the contents or materials specifically written by the author may be directly or indirectly reproduced, copied, modified, performed, displayed, sold, transmitted, published, rewritten for publication, redistributed in any medium, nor may any portion of the content be stored in a computer or distributed over any network, or otherwise used in any way, without the expressed prior written consent and permission of the author.


Just because you read my blog
don't assume you really know me!


READ.THIS --    



Skin created by Tuskudrusla.
Color-scheme and design "tweaked" by "This Southern Belle's Life" author.


















This Author's Profile

♪   I am

Susan Reno-Gilliland, known as "Miss Kitty," an Irish lass, a true Southern Belle; a writer, photographer, animal-lover, dreamer, stargazer, totally tangled (or is that entangled?) in relationships, slightly obsessive iNFp with stories to tell!    . . . (fascinated by forensics, human behavior, pushing all the right buttons of men I find interesting, and seeking utterly-sweet revenge without any repercussions.)     I am a Friday's Child.    Friday's Child is loving & giving.
View my complete profile
Find out even more



This Writer's Works

♪    This Southern Belle's Life
♪    This Southern Belle's Musings
♪    This Southern Belle's Work
♪    Never Underestimate
      A Southern Belle

♪    Good Girls Don't
      but (sometimes) I do ...

♪    This Southern Belle's
      Expressions

♪    Finding Your Personal Style
♪    Collection/Published Works
♪    Writer's Net
♪    StumbleUpon
♪    North Texas eNews
      "A Slice of Life" Columnist
♪    The Chattanoogan
      "A Southern Belle's Life" Column



Buy my stuff at Lulu!
Buy my stuff at Lulu!


Stumble Upon Toolbar

www.flickr.com
This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from asouthernbelle. Make your own badge here.

Site Feed


Content copyright protected by Copyscape website plagiarism search
Individual-i



Want to contact me?
southernbelle@susanrenogilliland.com
a.southernbelle@gmail.com


OFFICIAL HOLIDAY!

We've been accepted by Chase's Calendar of Events to promote the annual event each April for Southern Belles' Month!



Feeling the uncontrollable urge to shower me with gifts?
Check out my Amazon
WishList

Feeling even more generous?
Donate through
Your donations are GREATLY appreciated!


My Lists



2005 Movies


2006 Movies

100 Things
9 Layers
50 Questions
Another 50 Questions
Alphabetically-Speaking




AmericanDixie
IrishIrish
ScorpioNovember
blondeinfp
tidejournal
waterxm


Find Blogs in the Blog Directory

be
meow
fashion
handle
night
star
time



Who Links Here

[ Registered ]
       




My current imood is:
The current mood of asouthernbelle at www.imood.com



Regular "Reads"

   51313 Harbor Street
   Bonez
   Coffee Table Declarations
   Fractured Somehow
   In High Cotton
   Knight Writer
   Muchness of Me, A
   Musings of David Amulet, The
   Nickle Annie
   Patricia Paris
   Princess Girly Girl
   Steel Cowboy
   sugarfused.net
   Trixie's Home
   War Child
   Windfall Woman
   World According To Tish, The
   Zen Wizard


                                     Blogroll Me!



Misc. Links

   IMDb
   PostSecret
   Mental Floss
   Urban Legends
   Criminal Minds
   Wish Jar Journal
   To Protect The Innocent



Personal Charities & Causes

   Breast Cancer Research
      Foundation

   Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric
      AIDS Foundation, The

   Leary Firefighters'
      Foundation, The

   Michael J. Fox Foundation
   National Center For
      Victims of Crimes, The

   Rape, Abuse & Incest
      National Network (RAINN)

   Red Cross, The
   Victory Junction Gang, The



Catch the latest surfing craze!


BlogClicker


BlogAzoo


BlogExplosion


Blog Soldiers

AutoSurfMonster.com
TopBlogArea.com
Personal Blogs
Personal Blogs



Archives







moon phases
 



The WeatherPixie

Living somewhere, out there
in the Southeast, US of A




U.S.A. EDT