Background
Larry Burrows was born on May 29, 1926 in London, United Kingdom.
(Published posthumously, this volume provides an excellent...)
Published posthumously, this volume provides an excellent survey of Larry Burrows' work for Life magazine from the late-1940s to 1971 (when he disappeared in Laos), concentrating primarily on the Vietnam War.
https://www.amazon.com/Larry-Burrows-Compassionate-Photographer/dp/B0006C4VUC/?tag=2022091-20
1972
Larry Burrows was born on May 29, 1926 in London, United Kingdom.
Burrows left school at 16 and took a job in Life magazine's London bureau. Burrows went on to become a photographer and covered the war in Vietnam from 1962 until his death in 1971.
Larry Burrows began his career in the art department of the Daily Express newspaper in 1942 in London. He learned photography and moved to work in the darkrooms of the Keystone photography agency and Life Magazine.It was here that Burrows started to be called Larry to avoid confusion with another Henry working in the same office It was not unknown for him to redo a whole day of work in order to secure the best result.
Larry Burrows had an early success with his coverage of the demolition of the Heligoland U-Boat Pens in 1947. Working for the Associated Press, Burrows was a passenger in De Havilland Dragon Rapide. Officially they weren't supposed to go no closer to the island than 9 miles. However, Burrows persuaded the pilot to fly over at only 500 feet, knocking out the window perspex when it obscured his shot. For his efforts he was able to take eleven images and earned himself two pages in Life Magazine.His work is often cited as the most searing and the most consistently excellent photography from the war, and several of his pictures (“Reaching Out,” for example, featuring a wounded Marine desperately trying to comfort a stricken comrade after a fierce 1966 firefight) and photo essays both encompassed and defined the long, polarizing catastrophe in Vietnam. One of his most famous collections, published first in LIFE Magazine on 16 April 1965, was entitled "One Ride with Yankee Papa 13". He was one of the subjects of the film biography The Photographers by Time-Life Productions in 1970.
Larry Burrows died with fellow photojournalists Henri Huet (Associated Press), Kent Potter (United Press International) and Keisaburo Shimamoto (freelancer with Newsweek), when their helicopter was shot down over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos as the group covered Operation Lam Son 719.
(In the heat of battle, in the devastated countryside, amo...)
2002(Published posthumously, this volume provides an excellent...)
1972Vietnam
(Four Marines rescue the body of their squad leader Leland...)
1966Reaching Out
(Wounded Gunnery Sergeant Jeremiah Purdie moves to comfort...)
1966Dropping of troops
(Mekong Delta)
1962Inspecting 122 MM artillery piece near Laos border
1968Relief of Khe Sanh
1968Operation Prairie
1966Wounded GI near DMZ
1966Yankee Papa 13
1965F-102's along Vietnam coast
1966First Aid Station, DMZ
1966Quotations: "It's no easy to photograph a man dying in the arms of a fellow countryman... Was I simply capatalizing on the other men's grief? I concluded that what I was doing would penetrate the hearts of those at home who are simply too indifferent."
Burrows's method of photojournalism was deliberate and meticulous, not dependent on chance and instinct. He carefully planned his photographs, dictating their scenario, setting, and composition on the basis of his observations of the battlefront, and often spending several days on a single image. Although his method may seem counter-intuitive for war photography, he captured many of the most effective and memorable images of the war in Vietnam.
Quotes from others about the person
Following his death the Managing Editor of Life, Ralph Graves, said of Burrows: "I do not think it is demeaning to any other photographer in the world for me to say that Larry Burrows was the single bravest and most dedicated war photographer I know of."
David Halberstam, Requiem, "By the Photographers Who Died in Vietnam and Indochina": "I must mention Larry Burrows in particular. To us younger men who had not yet earned reputations, he was a sainted figure. He was a truly beautiful man, modest, graceful, a star who never behaved like one. He was generous to all, a man who gave lessons to his colleagues not just on how to take photographs but, more important, on how to behave like a human being, how to be both colleague and mentor. Our experience of the star system in photography was, until we met him, not necessarily a happy one; all too often talent and ego seemed to come together in equal amounts. We were touched by Larry: How could someone so talented be so graceful?"
Ben Cosgrove: "Larry Burrows made a photograph that, for generations, has served as the most indelible, searing illustration of the horrors inherent in that long, divisive war - and, by implication, in all wars."
Ralph Graves: "I do not think it is demeaning to any other photographer in the world for me to say that Larry Burrows was the single bravest and most dedicated war photographer I know of."