Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/05/20

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Subject: Peter Stackpole
From: wteeters@amug.org (Wilber J. Teeters)
Date: Tue, 20 May 1997 18:01:03 -0700 (MST)
 
  We should note the passing of Peter Stackpole, May 11. He was one of the
four original staff photographers hired by LIFE magazine in 1936, along
with Alfred Eisenstaedt, Margaret Bourke-White, and Thomas McAvoy. Ouoting
from the excellent book of his photographs of the raising of the San
Francisco Bay Bridge, 1934-1936: "At the age of twenty-one, I was two years
out of high school, without work, and facing uncertain times. On this
particular day, I was riding the Oakland-San Francisco ferry boat - a good
place to think things over. I wore a dark blue corduroy jacket with big
pockets into which I had place film and my prized possession: a Model C
Leica camera. The small camera was new then, and I had been using it
candid-style on people, Mostly experimental.

  From the port side of the ferry I watched the beginning of the bridge
tower and the swirling smoke from the rivet oven. Suddenly the notion came
to me. It came so clearly it seemed already a fact that my camera work
would take a new direction. It was just a matter of doing it."

Regards,
Bill


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