B

Carlo Bavagnoli

Born in Piacenza, Italy, Carlo Bavagnoli (1932-present) was heading for a career in law when he met the storied LIFE photographer David Douglas Duncan at the Milan opera house, La Scala. Duncan explained his craft to Bavagnoli, who was fascinated by this “new means of expression, new means by which I might see the world.”

C

Cornell capa

As an 18-year-old native of Budapest, Kornel Friedmann (1918-2008)—he would later follow his older brother, Robert Capa, and change his name—learned what he needed to know about the power of a camera from Robert’s Spanish Civil War images. “The times I grew up in became part of my conscience and my photography. I was not an artistic photographer and never became one..."

D

myron davis

At age 11, Myron Davis (1919-2010) asked his mother how photographs were made...and she explained the process to him. Then, Davis recalled: ”I went to the drugstore, got the chemicals…put a blanket over the bathroom window, made a little red light out of some red cellophane, got some old pots and pans, and ran a roll through. I was bit from there on.”

E

Alfred Eisenstaedt

For Alfred Eisenstaedt (1898-1995), the thing that was always there, within him, prompting and pointing the way, was his undying curiosity, which was tethered to his photographer’s eye: “I see pictures all the time. I could stay for hours and watch a raindrop.”

F

N.r. farbman

N.R. Farbman (1907-1988) began working as a freelance photographer while studying electrical engineering at the University of Santa Clara. During his 15 years as a LIFE staffer, “Nat” was considered one of its most versatile practitioners, covering stories in the U.S. and extensively abroad.

G

Herbert Gehr

“Brown-eyed and serious, he likes any kind of story on which he can work alone without rubbing elbows with dozens of other photographers.”

Herbert Gehr (1910-1983)

H

philippe halsman

He may never have been on LIFE’s staff, but Philippe Halsman (1906-1979) will always be considered one of the magazine’s most important photographers.

J

james jarche

“At a dramatic moment,” James Jarche (1891-1965) said, “my bowler hat—in which a small camera was concealed—would lift and click, the tell-tale sound covered by a well-timed cough.”

K

Mark Kauffman

Of all the possible images of Eleanor Roosevelt that inundated LIFE’s editors in 1939, they chose one for the cover by a 16-year-old high school student named Mark Kauffman (1921-1994), and thus began a decades-long relationship with the magazine.

L

George Lacks

George Lacks (1910-1960) spent much of his career in Shanghai, which made sense because he had lived there for years before he joined LIFE and had even been an official photographer for the Chinese government.

M

Michael Mauney

The last photographer to join the LIFE staff before the weekly magazine closed in 1972 was Michael Mauney (1937-present), a veteran newspaper photographer from North Carolina. Mauney was relieved to be away from the hard-news pressure of bagging the defining moment of an event: “I just always shied away from putting myself in a position of having to get that moment,” he once recalled.

O

John Olson

John Olson (1947-present) became the magazine’s youngest staff photographer ever at age 21, and his youth was no doubt central to the success of a completely different sort of feature he shot for LIFE: on rock stars and their families.

P

Gordon Parks

It is not simply that he was the first black man to do all these things, but that he was the only man to do all these things.

‍Gordon Parks (1912-2006)

R

Bill Ray

“When a LIFE magazine photographer came to a small town in America, the headline might be ‘Missouri Floods-100,000 Homeless; LIFE Photographer Eisenstaedt in Town,'” said Bill Ray (1936-present), who took up the camera to escape his tiny Nebraska hometown. He always wanted to be closer to the action.

S

Walter Sanders

Untold numbers of fathers have bought their first camera to take a picture of their baby daughter. But Walter Sanders (1897-1985) was probably the first one who did that and went on to become a LIFE photographer.

V

William Vandivert

A Chicago native, William Vandivert (1912-1990) covered a wide swath of the Midwest until LIFE sent him to England for what was supposed to be a six-month tour in 1938. World War II altered his plans. From the first night of the Blitz, Vandivert was out on London’s docks, and for the next two and a half years he recorded the horrific bombing and magnificent stoicism of the English.

W

hank walker

Politicians were just another kind of celebrity to Hank Walker (1922-1996): “If you can appeal to that ego, they usually let you do the story.”

the faces behindthe lens

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the faces behind
the lens