Rare Color Portraits of Photographers During World War II

In the World War II era, LIFE magazine was probably the most influential photojournalism magazine in the world. During that war, the most dramatic pictures of the conflict came not so often from the newspapers as from the weekly photojournalism magazines, photos that still are famous today.

The drama of war and violence could be captured on those small, fast 35 mm cameras like no other, although it had to be said that through the 1950s and even 1960s, not all photojournalists used 35s. Many used large hand-held cameras made by the Graflex Camera Company, and two have become legendary: the Speed Graphic, and later, Crown Graphic. These are the cameras you think of when you see old movies of photographers crowding around some celebrity, usually showing the photographer smoking a cigar and wearing a "Press" card in the hatband of his fedora. These cameras used sheet film, which meant you had to slide a holder in the back of the camera after every exposure. They also had cumbersome bellows-style focusing, and a pretty crude rangefinder. Their advantage, however, was their superb quality negative, which meant a photographer could be pretty sloppy about exposure and development and still dredge up a reasonable print. (Automatic-exposure and focus cameras did not become common until the 1980s.)

An Army Signal Corps photographer perches atop a pile of rubble to film the battle for Normandy in June 1944.

U.S. Marine Corps original combat cameraman

Army photographer.

Army photographer.

Serial photographer poses for ground photographer before boarding plane for mission.

Sgt. handing oblique camera to serial photographer for mission on a North American C-47A.

Sgt. installs a K-25 camera in a Bell P-39.

General view of Type A-2 photo trailer.

First man to obtain invasion day photographs is cameraman Captain Dale E. Bikinis, shown with his specially constructed camera.

First man to obtain invasion day photographs is cameraman Captain Dale E. Bikinis, shown with his specially constructed camera.

Combat cameraman has been in the ETO 27 months. He uses an old shattered German pillbox for protection while photographing the war action.

A WAC Sergeant makes a shot with a flash camera while in training.

(via Shooting Film)