My Favorite Photographers: Margaret Bourke-White

Margaret Bourke-White was one of the best photographers, and a personal favorite.  She is in my top 3 list, along with Elliott Erwitt and Edward S. Curtis. Margaret Bourke-White on her way to Europe to photograph WWII She gained prominence when she was hired to the original staff of Life magazine photographers in 1935. Some of her career achievements: In 1930 she became the first western photographer allowed into the Soviet Union. In 1935 she joined the original staff of Life magazine; her photo of Fort Peck Dam was the first Life magazine cover. She documented life in 1930s Czechoslovakia, leading up to the Nazi takeover, in a book called North of the Danube. She documented the conditions of poor tenant farmers in the depression with the writer Erskine Caldwell, and together they published You Have Seen Their Faces. Margaret Bourke-White was the only foreign photojournalist in Moscow when the Nazis attacked that city; she documented it for Life magazine. She invaded Germany with Patton's troops. She was one of the first to photograph the concentration camps. She also worked as a war photographer in the Korean War. But  the main point is, that Margaret Bourke-White consistently and prolifically created excellent and dramatic photos, whether shooting some of the major events of the century, or just ordinary daily life and work.  You can see many more of her images with this Duck-Duck-Go search.

Margaret Bourke-White Books