Photographer of the week

Born as Margaret White in 1904 in New York,  Margaret Bourke-White studied photography at Clarence H. White School of Photography in 1921-22. Her father was an avid hobby photographer, but she never picked up a camera until after his death in 1922.

She then spent five years attending four different universities from 1922-1927. She attended Cornell University and made money selling photographs of the buildings at the school until she graduated in 1927.

During her college days, she married and then divorced in two years. At the time of finalizing her divorce, she took the opportunity to legally change her name. She took on her mother's maiden name (Bourke) to create her hyphenated professional last name.

In her early days, she was an industrial and architectural photographer, traveled to Germany and Russia to do photo essays, and photographed the great American dust bowl. She was recognized by early on from her architectural and industrial photos. Her father spent most of his life working as a designer and engineer, and many speculate that this had an affect on Bourke-White's eye for her early work.

This work caught the eye of Henry Luce who started Fortune Magazine and she became the first staff photographer for the new periodical.

In 1936, she became one of Life Magazine's first four photographers on staff. She was also the first female photographer for Life. One of her photos was even used on the very first issue of Life magazine. It featured the Fort Peck Damn in the process of being built. This was for the feature story in the magazine which highlighted the life and boomtowns around the dam construction, of which Bourke-White took the photos for.

Working directly with Life, she covered World War II, covering the siege of Moscow, and liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany. These graphic photos shocked the world with images of concentration camps and gas chambers. The photos ran in Life Magazine.

Afterwards, she travelled to India to photograph Gandhi and mass division caused by religious devision between Hindi India and Muslim Pakistan.

In 1969, she retired from Life magazine. At this point in her life, she was suffering from Parkinson's and spent the later part of her career at Life doing things other than photography due to the effects of it. She passed away just a few years later in 1971.

My favorite photo of hers is the first cover of Life Magazine. I really love her use of contrast of light on her architectural work.

Image courtesy of The Met.