Obit of the Day
Looking at the famous, infamous, not-so-famous, and unique lives that have shuffled off this mortal coil.
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Obit of the Day: Taught Ken Burns Everything He Knows
Jerome Loebling liked to debate his father about politics and preferred to back up his arguments. So as a teenager he took his Kodak Brownie camera into the streets of Brooklyn snapping shots of social injustice he found as evidence for his point-of-view. Liebling never stopped shooting.
Becoming one of the “nation’s premier documentary photographers” Liebling would capture images of life as he found it. Whether it was a child in Brooklyn (“Butterfly Boy”, top) or U.S. Senators (Hubert H. Humphrey, D-Minn. at a baseball game based on add’l. input it may be a football game, center right) Liebling found the perfect moment, look, and framing and captured it forever.
“The work has never been flamboyant. It’s always been under control, beautifully made, and very deeply felt, without being in any way hyperbolic.” - John Szarkowski
His greatest success may have been as a professor. Teaching at the University of Minnesota from two decades (1949-1969) and then at Hampshire College (Massachusetts) for two more (1970-1990) Liebling’s students won Emmys, Oscars and Peabodys for their work. More than two dozen students became professional photographers or filmmakers. The most famous of his pupils is popular documentarian Ken Burns (The Civil War, Baseball, Jazz).
(All four images copyright Jerome Liebling, courtesy of jeromeliebling.com)
Obit of the Day: Light on the South Side
After graduating from the Wharton School of Business, Michael Abramson took a photography course. It changed his life. He headed to Chicago’s Illinois Institute of Technology in 1974 and three years later graduated with a Master’s degree in photography. While at IIT Abramson would head a little farther south and document the night life of Chicago’s black community with his camera. The photos remained part of his personal collection for thirty years.
In the interim, Abramson travelled the world as a photojournalist working for the New York Times, Fortune, People, and Sports Illustrated.
Then in 2008, Abramson took his collection of photos from Chicago’s blues clubs and published them in a book, Light on the South Side. The book also came with two LPs with blues songs from the period. (Sweet.)
Abramson who has photos in the Smithsonian Institution and the Chicago History Museum died at 62 in his Chicago home, with his dog Hazel.
(Image copyright Michael Abramson via www.lostinasupermarket.com)
