David Douglas Duncan - 1916-2018 I first heard David Douglas Duncan speak in 2013. The combat photographer — one who covered the Korean War in the 1950s and redefined many aspects of photography during his long career — had been invited to speak at the Visa pour l'Image photojournalism festival alongside other legends of war photography: John G. Morris, Don McCullin, Yuri Kozyrev and Patrick Chauvel. What I remember from this panel discussion wasn't all the talk about the danger of combat photography, it was his kindness and wit. Duncan lived to 102, and earlier this week, the centenarian who outlived many of the photographers and photo editors he inspired, drew his last breath in his adopted French Riviera. Duncan, as Washington Post's Harrison Smith wrote, "was widely considered one of the finest photojournalists of the 20th century. In Life magazine photo essays, television specials and about two dozen books, he captured the seemingly incongruous subjects of war and art, traveling from the front lines of battle to the treasure troves of the Kremlin in Moscow and the French studio of Pablo Picasso." But he was also one of the finest human beings. A little over two years ago, as Duncan was turning 100, Liz Ronk of TIME magazine and I were making the rounds, asking some of Duncan's friends for their best memories of the man. Robert Sullivan, a former LIFE editor, said it best when he recounted the following: I thought I was beyond being surprised by David when, last year, we were working on a book about Vietnam. We found a photo essay from the 1950s about the French involvement there, which predated the American quagmire by a few years, indicating that the situation there was beyond problematical, even beyond dire or redemption. I had been unaware of the article, which was not only shot but also reported by Duncan. We would run a bunch of pictures in our book, of course, and for background I talked to David about the prescience of the piece. He said, with his good humor, that it nearly got him canned. Time Inc. boss Henry Luce was all for Asian interventions of any sort, and when the French ambassador protested to him about the feature, Luce called Duncan on the carpet. After Luce fulminated for a bit during this private audience, Duncan said the boss obviously had one option: 'Fire me.' Luce, a smart editor, chose not to. That is David, too: tough and principled and clear-eyed. |
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