Max Desfor

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Noarn Mitchell Max Desfor (* 8. November 1913 in the Bronx ( New York City ); † 19th February 2018 in Silver Spring , Maryland ) was an American photographer . He won the 1951 Pulitzer Prize for Photography for his photo coverage of the Korean War .

Live and act

The son of Eastern European immigrants attended Brooklyn College for a year after high school . In 1933 Desfor started at the Associated Press (AP) news agency , initially as a messenger and darkroom assistant, teaching himself to take photos. In 1938 he was first a press photographer in the Baltimore office of AP, from 1939 he worked in the Washington office. In 1942 he was promoted to photo editor. As a war correspondent in the United States Navy , he joined Admiral Chester W. Nimitz's staff in 1944 . He photographed the Enola Gay after the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima as it landed on Tinian and participated in the landing in Yokosuka in August 1945. He reported on the official Japanese surrender on the USS Missouri , on the war crimes trials in Manila , the Indonesian War of Independence , the Kashmir conflict and the funeral services after the murder of Mahatma Gandhi .

After Desfor worked briefly for AP in Rome in 1949 , he reported from the Korean War from 1950 . Here he took one of the most famous photos of the war in the winter of 1950. Desfor had parachuted in the war zone south of the Yalu to accompany an offensive by the American troops. He came into the counterattack of the Chinese "People's Volunteer Army". While retreating, he watched on the Taedong River as fleeing Korean civilians tried to cross the river on December 5, 1950 via the destroyed Taedong Bridge in Pyongyang . One of the photos Desfor took of it, entitled Flight of Refugees Across Wrecked Bridge in Korea or The Bridge at Pyongyang , won the 1951 Pulitzer Prize in the press photography category. The jury praised Desfors Photography:

“The Korean warfront pictures by Max Desfor of the Associated Press represent camera reporting of so outstanding a nature as to sweep aside single-shot entries of the competition. Any single selection from the album [of 56 pictures] would leave out many equally worthy shots and would not convey the comprehensive and distinguished nature of Desfor's work. The possible exception would be this startling picture of the Koreans scrambling for their lives across the wrecked bridge. "

“The images of war from Korea by Max Desfor from Associated Press are such outstanding photo coverage that they brushed aside the individual images in the competition. Any single choice from the album [of 56 images] would skip many equally award-winning shots and fail to do justice to the vast and outstanding nature of Desfor's work. The possible exception would be this startling picture of Koreans climbing for their lives on the destroyed bridge. "

- Pulitzer Prize Jury : Report on the 1951 award ceremony.

From 1954 to 1978 Desfor headed the "Wide World Photos" division at AP. From 1968 he was chief photo editor for the Asian region in Tokyo . After his time at AP, he worked as a senior photo editor for US News & World Report until 1983 .

Publications

  • The Korean War Through the Camera of an American War Correspondent. In: Philip West and Ji-moon Suh (eds.). Remembering the "Forgotten War". The Korean War Through Literature and Art. ME Sharpe, Armonk, NY 2001, ISBN 9781317461036 ( Study of the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center ), pp. 77-91.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Heinz-Dietrich Fischer: Picture Coverage of the World: Pulitzer Prize Winning Photos . Lit, Berlin 2011, p. 24.
personal data
SURNAME Desfor, Max
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Desfor, Noarn Mitchell (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American press photographer and war correspondent
DATE OF BIRTH November 8, 1913
PLACE OF BIRTH Bronx
DATE OF DEATH 19th February 2018
Place of death Silver Spring