George Silk

George Silk

George Silk (born November 17, 1916 in Levin , New Zealand ; † October 23, 2004 in Norwalk , Connecticut , USA ) was an American war and sports photographer of New Zealand origin, who opened up new technical and aesthetic possibilities as an autodidact in press photography .

Life

youth

Kodak box camera

The son of the carpenter Stewart Silk and his wife Jane, George was born in rural Levin on New Zealand's North Island . A few years later the family moved to the metropolis of Auckland .

There George graduated from the Auckland Grammar School . As a teenager, photography had already become his hobby . His older sister Shelly had the 16-year-old one of the legendary Kodak - box cameras bestowed with which he according to his own words, completely devoid of classical models in exposure - and imaging technology as well as the film development experimented. But he did not think directly of making a real job out of it. His photographic knowledge at least recommended him to his first employer.

He initially worked as a trainee, then from 1934 to 1939 as an employee in a photo shop in Auckland. His employer encouraged him, in recognition of his talent, to try out the compact cameras that were available in his shop - including Rolleiflex , Contax and, also made in Germany , Leica . As an enthusiastic athlete who always took a camera with him for fishing , sailing competitions , skiing or mountaineering , he laid the foundation for his later activity as a professional sports photographer.

As with many other young photographers, the Second World War brought a turn in his life, which he himself actively brought about. According to his own words, although he did not want to evade military service, he had an aversion to firearms .

"The only way I could go to was (...) what to photograph it. And indeed it was important someone should photograph it. Instinctively I had developed the documentary sense. I had been following documentary movies and had made some documentary films. "

- Georg Silk : opposite Neil McDonald, 1996

From amateur to war photographer

Robert Gordon Menzies

Private George "Dick" Whittington is led to the hospital by Papuan Raphael Oimbari, December 1942

First he tried his hand at the New Zealand recruitment office . But the short promise, "sign it here and tomorrow you will be a photographer", rather led him to distrust.

In 1939 he resolutely tucked the portfolio folder of his best sports photos under his arm and traveled to Australia . If all else had failed, he would even have considered joining the regular Australian Imperial Force (AIF). After walking hesitantly through Sydney for three weeks , he drove to the capital Canberra and pulled into the prime minister's office . Received by the private secretary Robert Gordon Menzies , he decided to present the album to his boss. For his part, Menzies presented the pictures to his cabinet members and instructed the secretary to take all further action. To his surprise, George Silk was immediately hired as one of the official war photographers . Equipped with a ticket to Melbourne , he met John Maplestone, the head of the Film Division of the Department of Information, the so-called "Cinema Branch" of the State Department. Maplestone had him equipped with a uniform and further instructions within a briefing . A short time later he was traveling on a steamer in the direction of the Middle East . Those responsible had probably recognized that his talent in assessing the timing and risk , which had already brought him advantages in his original profession , could serve them well in propaganda and usual reporting.

His boss and later friend there was the four years older cameraman Damien Parer , who could already look back on a career as a still photographer and cameraman in commercial and documentary productions. The contents of the briefing, which your top boss gave you on the way, are passed down through Parer:

1. To build a true picture of the Australian soldier in movie and stills.
2. To make good movie single reelers (1 to 10 minutes) showing cause and affect [sic]. Something after March of Time idea why we are here and what we are doing in the long rang perspective as it affects us in Australia.
3. To keep newspapers and newsreels supplied with really hot spectacular news.

According to the practice at the time, “still photographs” were also used from the films themselves for the newspapers , and still photos that Silk made were cut in between in the weekly news reports.

The technical equipment that Parer had bought, consisted of Newman-Sinclair - film cameras , a Graflex and 35mm Contaxgehäusen that Silk with wide angle - and telephoto lenses began. After both of them had completed the basic military training of the AIF, they developed a close cooperation in filming and still photography, which should be exemplary for modern war photography.

Super D Graflex

During this first campaign, the two of them hardly got close enough to the front line , but even here they managed to take a number of candid snapshots that met with a positive response at home. After months of training and the stage they found themselves in a desert - trench warfare again, draw the hundreds of miles back and forth surged, without giving them vital opportunities. At least Parer had the chance to get some high-profile footage of bombing raids and first worked with ABC reporter Chester Wilmot when they were producing a cover story about the siege of Tobruk .

After a few months, the otherwise reliable Silk developed in a positive sense into a true unlucky fellow ("accident-prone"). When he negligently changed course with his truck , he found himself in the middle of the "Crusader" offensive and the tank battle of Sidi Rezegh, in the middle of the action.

Both Parer and Silk often quarreled with the new head of their unit. Captain Frank Hurley , a camera veteran of the First World War , in Silk's opinion, had absolutely no understanding of the possibilities the compact cameras offered for reporting. The young cameramen loathed Hurley's inclination for posed shots and preferred authentic photos. Neil McDonald admitted that her rejection of Hurley was a little harsh. In his mid-50s, he was also worried about their safety. On the other hand, Silk and Parer would have rightly emphasized the effectiveness of the smaller cameras.

For Parer and Silk, the real extent of the dangers only became apparent when the special forces of the Africa Corps were able to temporarily capture Erwin Rommel . After ten days they managed to escape.

When both were later deployed as a team in fiercely contested New Guinea , both were technically sophisticated war photographers. There Silk was supposed to succeed in his “masterpiece” in December 1942 after the 300-mile forced march of the Kokoda Trail . On a field path, he photographed a blinded Australian soldier with a walking stick, which is being led by the hand of a Papuan . The image, which was simple but flawless in terms of its composition, had such a humanitarian message that transcended racial boundaries that the image , which was initially censored, caught the attention of the makers of Life magazine. Soon after, its editor-in-chief, Wilson Hicks, hired the New Zealander and published his photograph of the wounded soldier for the first time on March 8, 1943 . The soldier himself represented, who had recovered from his initial injuries, died a few weeks before the release in a military hospital in typhoid , but was a since icon in the struggle of Australians and New Zealanders against Japan hyped: A little later served the image, for example, as a frontispiece in the book “The War in New Guinea: Official War Photographs of the Battle for Australia,” published in Sydney in May of the same year .

Combat operations on Peleliu

Silks switched to the US magazine for three reasons in particular: After the fighting at Buna in Papua New Guinea , he was seriously ill with malaria and wanted to get out of the tropics as quickly as possible , the initial censorship had embittered him and the payment for his work , which went beyond normal military service, did not correspond to the agreed modalities. Parer, who was seriously ill with dysentery in the meantime , also had disputes with the authorities about payment and image rights after his recovery, so that after some back and forth he was able to accept an offer from Paramount News . While negotiations were still ongoing, Parer was killed on September 16, 1944 when US forces landed on Peleliu . He had been using a tank as cover and was going back to film the faces of the marines advancing when a Japanese machine gunner opened fire on him. However, his friend and colleague Silk was to survive the war.

War correspondent for Life

Silk's photo of a pregnant cow in the backlight , published in February, had already made the editors of "Life" prick up. Because she remembered it as George on the popular Walt Disney - cartoon " The Story of Ferdinand " .

As a result, Silk was used on all fronts during the war, so that after his assignments for the Australian government in North Africa , the Middle East , Greece and Crete, he now also worked for “Life” in Europe , Japan and China .

Few of the war photographers of the time had been deployed in so many locations and survived this dangerous work.

Nagasaki after the atomic bomb attack

He is credited with the first photograph of a dead American soldier, which he photographed on a pontoon crossing over the Rur . Although this led to severe irritation in the USA , it had no political consequences compared to the American work in Somalia . In the south of France he was the only survivor in the crash of a military transport glider . In the German theater of war he suffered injuries from a shrapnel while crossing a river and an involuntary “high point” of his career can be seen as one of the first photographers to work in the Japanese city of Nagasaki , which was destroyed by the atomic bomb .

According to the words of his daughter Georgina Silk, the then 23-year-old naively thought at the beginning of his work that he could show the public the horror of the war with his recordings . So he wanted to prevent further wars if possible.

Silk worked for a total of 30 years after the war, until the magazine was discontinued as a weekly magazine in 1973 , as a permanent photographer for his American employer. Silk also worked for other magazines as a freelancer. Many of his works also appeared in “ Sports Illustrated ”.

Return to sports photography

After the end of the Second World War, Silk, who had soon felt more at home in the trenches of the battlefield than in civil life, initially felt an uncertain emptiness. In 1947 he moved to the United States and also obtained American citizenship. In the same year he married Margery Gray Schieber. From then on they lived in Westport 's Owenoke Park, near Compo Beach, where they both shared their lifelong hobby, sport sailing .

Moved by the war experiences, however, he managed to be withdrawn from the military conflicts, as he had already earned merits as a talented sports photographer . Now he has become one of the best optical reporters for any kind of adventure reportage , sporting or other events such as the Oscars , political events such as the US election campaign. In the 1950s and 1960s, his pictures of the Olympic Games , the America's Cup and “simple” portraits of children were considered both original and aesthetic in terms of their pictorial idea .

Silk also performed particularly well in adventure reports. During a polar expedition by the US Air Force in 1952, he was the only photographer who was allowed to be part of the installation of a weather observation station around 160 km from the North Pole on behalf of Life. In order to be able to take the appropriate recordings, both Silk and its material were required at −60 degrees Celsius. Twelve camera housings froze.

technology

George Silk was known for his technical innovations. So he mounted cameras on surfboards , skis or the top of a ship's mast in order to increase the dramatic effect. This put the camera in positions the photographer would never have been in, explained John Loengard, a former photo editor for Life.

"George wurde a great sports photographer by looking at sports from wholly new angles," ( "George was a great sports photographer, examining the sport completely new angles" ) meant Silks Freud and former editor Philip Kunhardt.

Born in New Zealand, he is also the inventor of what he called the “strip camera”, in which he developed a forerunner of today's racecourse photo-finish cameras with the help of a wind-up motor from an old record player. In his model, the film to be exposed moved past the open aperture , which strangely distorted the objects in length and out of focus , as in astigmatism , in order to emphasize the feeling of speed and movement. He first used this technique at the Kentucky Derby in 1958, but these recordings were hardly noticed outside of America. The pictures he took in the hurdles sprint and other athletics competitions for the US qualifications for the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome were the cornerstone that secured the collective memory of sports fans for him. But he used this technique himself to set the dynamics of his Halloween celebrating children and their playmates in scene.

He also experimented with high-speed flash units , panorama cameras , high f-numbers and shutter speeds. He can also be seen as a pioneer of the "Trapp camera". To take nature photographs, he placed a camera in a glass box in a stream at a deer crossing in Montana . A little further on, he stayed in cover until a week later a deer and a trout came into view, and triggered the recording by remote control . Improved methods of this procedure, which still required the personal presence of the observer, are now used in biology and zoology for researching rare animal species in remote areas.

Outstanding works

Those who know the scene consider his “Perfect ten point landing” (1962), the dynamic image of a diving high diver, and his more abstract impression of a head-to-head race in the elimination race of the Australian challengers as two of his best pictures of this creative period - Yacht “Gretel” for the America's Cup from the same year. The 1960 World Series image is a great example of how Silk could approach a sporting event. As a New Zealander, even after 13 years in the States, baseball had remained somewhat alien to him. However, he had a natural aversion to crowds and sports stadiums, as he himself hated the noise, which made work there almost impossible for him: "I hated stadiums and I couldn't work with all that noise in my ears." But he found one until then an unusual solution. Far above the stadium, on the roof of the “Cathedral of Learning” at the University of Pittsburgh , he shot the game between the New York Yankees and the Pittsburgh Pirates . In the foreground you could see some onlookers who also watched the endgame from a distance, whereby George put the event in a new value with this only seemingly distant perspective. Because just at that moment the game came to a head in the event of a tie, when the Pirates player, Bill Mazeroski, managed a highly regarded and decisive home run . Other photographers could now have presented a picture that Mazeroski triumphantly immortalized while circling the bases or his team celebrating him. But Silk's sense of dynamism and sport was not necessarily to symbolize the individual athlete as " heroes ". His aim was to capture the quintessence of the respective sport and its sense of movement for posterity. Today, the picture is one of the most outstanding visual documents of American baseball and is a popular poster - motive . Thus, Silk's approach, which did not always meet the undivided applause of his clients, confirmed its timeless validity.

Honors

During his long career, the New Zealander has received numerous awards, such as the renowned "Magazine Photographer of the Year" from the National Press Photographers Association, the University of Missouri or its journalism chair and the World Book Encyclopedia for four consecutive years of the New York Art Directors Club. The years between 1960 and 1964 were considered the most successful of his work. His works can be found in numerous galleries and museums around the world.

death

At the age of 87, George Silk died on October 23, 2004 near his home at Norwalk Hospital, Connecticut, of complications from a narrowing of the coronary heart . In the last years of his life his health was already severely impaired. He left behind his wife Margery, daughters Georgina and Shelly, his son Stuart, eight grandchildren and his brother Ivan.

Appreciation

In photographer circles, when it comes to the sports subject , one speaks of a symbiosis or poetry between physical discipline and the human pursuit of perfection. Seen from this perspective, Silk was the ultimate sports photographer. Known for his seemingly wide-angle shots and high-tech cameras , he made new aesthetic demands in his profession. He strived to always include the viewer in his picture, who often asked himself the question of the technical implementation.

As Silk himself said, he loved to be involved in the picture event himself and wanted to convey this successfully to the viewer: "I liked being a participant in things I photographed."

In the year of his death, a photo exhibition from 2000 was renewed in his honor in Sydney , which was financially supported by Time Incorporated New York and Nikon . The exhibits were made available by the "National Gallery of Australia", the "Life Gallery" and the "George Silk Gallery".

According to John Loengard's judgment, Silk was not an “operator”, that is, a director of the war. Robert Capa and Margaret Bourke-White, however, were “operators”. They saw the “big” picture and made it “their war” in their staging . But George just stubbornly wanted to "be there, overcame his fears and show people what the war really was like." (Loengard)

Others

George Silk was notorious in the professional scene for his humor . In December 1972 he was in Nepal to take a photo series of sports fields in the Himalayan region when he received new messages from his client. According to the anniversary volume “That Was the Life” (1977), Silk phoned back with a distorted voice: “Your message was only delivered in a mutilated manner. Please send 1.5 million dollars for additional expenses. "

Even in old age he still took still photos for the Oscar-winning film “ A Beautiful Mind ” with Russell Crowe , which was in a way a reminiscence of his beginnings as a photographer, since he was once a “still photographer” for the Documentary in Australia. Director Harold Ramis also thanked him in the credits of his film Reine Nervensache . It is not known in what capacity he was involved in the film.

Quotes

• "George was superbly versatile - he was at ease with every subject, technical or human (...). He was also lovably cantankerous, a larger than life character who would break into "Waltzing Matilda" with only the slightest excuse. " (Barbara Baker Burrows, picture editor, Life) ( German : " George was wonderfully versatile - he was familiar with every thing whether it was technical or human in nature. (...) He was also in a disarming way conflict-friendly, an exuberant personality who began to sing "Waltzing Matilda" even under the most flimsy pretext. " )
• "I left school when I was 14. I had no knowledge of the classics or how painters used light and things like that. Mayby it was already in me. "

Major works (selection)

• My favorite cow. Spring in New Zealand, 1942
• Private George “Dick” Whittington leading by Raphael Oimbari, New Guinea, 1942
• Sweden's Olympic high-jumper, Gunhild Larking, Melbourne, 1956
• Hammer thrower, US track team Olympic tryouts, Palo Alto, California, 1960
• My Children and their friends dressed in Halloween costumes, 1960
• World Series, Pittsburgh , 1960
• Fawn and rainbow trout, tributary of the Madison River, Montana, 1961
• 'Perfect ten point landing', Kathy Flicker, Dillon Gym Pool, Princeton University, 1962
• Gretel and Weatherly, off Newport, America's Cup trials, 1962

literature

• Los Angeles Times , Oct 28, 2004, George Silk , 87, Life Magazine Chronicled WWII, by Myrna Oliver.
• John Loengard: Life Photographers: What They Saw , Bullfinch / Little Brown 1998, 456 pp., ISBN 0821225189 .
• MacDonald, Neil / Brune, Peter: 200 shots: Damien Parer, George Silk and the Australians at was in New Guinea . St. Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1999.-x, 197 p., ISBN 1-86448-912-X .
• Obituary: DIED - George Silk . In: Der Spiegel . No. 45 , 2004, p. 222 ( Online - Oct. 30, 2004 ).
• Sabine, Patricia: An instant in war a powerful memory forever. Photo essay . In: Wartime Issue. 29, 2005 (= magazine of the Australian War Memorial ).
• The War in New Guinea: Official war photographs of the Battle for Australia . Sydney 1943.

items

• Bird orientation: puzzles in the sky. In: Geo-Magazin. Hamburg 1979, 10, pp. 90-106. Pictures for the report by Uta Henschel. ISSN  0342-8311

Web links

• Gallery. National Gallery of Australia, archived from the original on September 11, 2007 ; accessed on October 23, 2014 (English, original website no longer available). 
• Gallery of the most famous sports photographs from the exhibition mentioned ( Memento from September 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
• News, Obituaries - Westporter George Silk, Famed Life Photographer, Dies at 87 . In: Westport Now . Westport Media, October 26, 2004 ( online [accessed December 21, 2015]).
• Image of the fallen American soldier
• Unusual perspective on the World Series in Pittsburgh in 1960
• Aerial view of Hiroshima after the atomic bombing. (GIF (143 kB)) University of San Diego, archived from the original on January 4, 2004 ; accessed on August 15, 2014 (English, original website no longer available). 

Individual evidence

1. ↑ quoted from: Neil MacDonald, Peter Brune: 200 Shots. Damien Parer, George Silk and the Australians at War in New Guinea , Allen & Unwin, St. Leonards, NSW 1999, p. 9
2. ↑ quoted from: MacDonald, Neil / Brune, Peter: 200 shots: Damien Parer, George Silk and the Australians at war in New Guinea , St. Leonards, NSW: Allen & Unwin, 1999, p. 8.
3. ↑ George Silk: Blind Soldier . In: LIFE Magazine , March 8, 1943. Retrieved January 15, 2012.
4. ↑ ^{a b} David Walker: In Memoriam: George Silk, 87. pdnonline Photo District news, October 28, 2004, archived from the original on March 15, 2005 ; accessed on August 15, 2014 (English, original website no longer available).  
5. ^ Gale Group: Modern Photography , Photography Pub. Corp. 1989, p. 59
6. ^ Gale Group: Modern Photography , Photography Pub. Corp. 1989, p. 94
7. ^ Light and Film, Time-Life Books 1970, p. 216
8. ↑ Michael Shapiro: Clutch Shot Clinches Fall Classic. Smithsonian Magazine, archived from the original August 15, 2004 ; accessed on August 15, 2014 (English, original website no longer available).  
9. ↑ George Silk. Candace Perich Gallery, archived from the original on December 26, 2004 ; accessed on August 15, 2014 (English, original website no longer available).  
10. ↑ german.imdb.com
11. ↑ George Silk in: John Loengard: Life Photographers: What They Saw , Bullfinch / Little Brown 1998, p. 14
12. ↑ George Silk: My favorite cow. Spring in New Zealand. National Gallery of Australia, 1942, archived from the original on September 20, 2007 ; accessed on August 15, 2014 (English, original website no longer available).  
13. ↑ George Silk: Sweden's Olympic high-jumper, Gunhild Larking. National Gallery of Australia, 1956, archived from the original on September 20, 2007 ; accessed on August 15, 2014 (English, original website no longer available).  
14. ↑ George Silk: Hammer thrower, US track team Olympic tryouts, Palo Alto, California. National Gallery of Australia, 1960, archived from the original on September 20, 2007 ; accessed on August 15, 2014 (English, original website no longer available).  
15. ↑ George Silk: Halloween. National Gallery of Australia, 1960, archived from the original on September 20, 2007 ; accessed on August 15, 2014 (English, original website no longer available).  
16. ↑ George Silk: Fawn and rainbow trout, tributary of the Madison River, Montana. National Gallery of Australia, 1961, archived from the original on September 20, 2007 ; accessed on August 15, 2014 (English, original website no longer available).  
17. ↑ George Silk: 'Perfect ten point landing', Kathy Flicker, Dillon Gym Pool, Princeton University. National Gallery of Australia, 1962, archived from the original on September 20, 2007 ; accessed on August 15, 2014 (English, original website no longer available).  
18. ↑ George Silk: Gretel and Weatherly, off Newport, America's Cup trials. National Gallery of Australia, 1962, archived from the original on September 20, 2007 ; accessed on August 15, 2014 (English, original website no longer available).  

This version was added to the list of articles worth reading on August 25, 2005 .