Chim was my kind caring uncle, who brought gifts of books and took photos of me and my family. My mother, Eileen Shneiderman, was his older sister, and she loved him dearly. Chim’s untimely death at age 45 during the Suez Crisis in 1956 was a tragic event in our home that as a 9-year old I remember well. My mother devoted her life to her brother’s legacy, helping with the founding of ICP, and promoting his work wherever possible, until she died at age 96, just two years ago.
With my sister, I have had the privilege, responsibility, and pleasure of taking care of Chim’s archives, working with Magnum, and donating his vintage prints to ICP and other major museums that exhibit his work. It is inspiring to see how much the Magnum community treasures their founders and satisfying to find museum curators and photo scholars who are eager to become part of Chim’s still growing family of admirers.
Chim’s work is special because of his unique gentle personality. He had a remarkable capacity to engage with his subjects and make them partners in telling their story. If you look at many of Chim’s photos and ask yourself what happened in the 2 minutes before the photo you will repeatedly discover that there must have been a bond of friendship and a relationship of trust. This style occasionally occurs in the work of Chim’s close colleagues Henri Cartier Bresson and Robert Capa, but one of Magnum’s strengths was the diversity of its founders. Henri wanted to be invisible, and Capa was devoted to being close enough to capture the action.
Chim’s style was to get close enough emotionally, a style the resonates through the work of Susan Meiselas and other Magnum photographers.
Michael Kimmelman enthusiastically reviewed the 1996 ICP exhibit in the New York Times with these words:
"Chim was a dreamer, and along with Capa and Cartier-Bresson, one of the heroic and pioneering liberal photojournalists who thought he could actually improve the world by showing people what was going on in it."
"We, the undersigned, believe that the new rules currently under consideration for Film Permits (Chapter 9, Title 43 of the City Rules of New York) will have an irrevocable impact on independent filmmakers and photographers and their ability to engage in creative work in New York."
In my humble opinion one of the most impressive photography books: "Pleine mer" (the english version is called "Men at sea"). See more photographs here. What do you think?
Over the years I often get to airports very early so I can take pictures, and with time to kill recently at Tesla Airport, Belgrade I took a walk to the somewhat decaying, but highly atmospheric Soviet-era Aircraft Museum next door. I was interested to see how it dealt with the Balkan War and was not disappointed. There were exhibitions of parts of shot-down aircraft, from WW2 but also from more recent history; an F16 tailplane, a canopy and a pilot’s personal effects on the ejector seat of a B117.
I visited Belgrade, Serbia, for a small exhibition of my landscapes and a workshop with Serbian photojournalists. I always like to find out first who is in the audience and asked who still shoots with film, out of about sixty people only one hand went up! Not surprising in a city with no E6 lab only one place to process C41.
During the workshop we had very limited time so I proposed a very simple project on ‘Hands’. I used Canon 5D and went with the group, to the park and market place near the gallery, and for an hour we all had great fun in the sun finding hands to photograph.
I was first in Serbia on a family holiday with my twin brother Chris, and my father, I remember it well, it was the first time I had got drunk, with a cheap bottle of the local wine, and a shop that did not mind selling it to two ten year olds.
See more photographs from Utopia, Texas taken by Alec Soth in this Magnum album. And you might also be interested in his more recent personal blog post entitled "Reflections in the helmet shield". Looking through a mirror or a window? Comments appreciated.
As the festivities around Magnum's 60th birthday and the famously passionate AGM in New York City are over, Inge Bondi, who worked for Magnum for 20 years, looks back at the early years of the agency.
When I was hired by Magnum Photos in New York at the beginning of 1950 as a researcher/secretary, Magnum was just two and half years old, having been established in New York and Paris in May 1947.
The name conjured up pictures of glamour, but in fact its creation had been an act of desperation: working conditions had changed.
Robert Capa, a Hungarian, had already been acclaimed as the most daring and brilliant of war photographers for his coverage of the Spanish Civil War in the thirties. He and George Rodger, an Englishman, had covered World War II for LIFE and other magazines. George had chased the enemy across Africa from East to West and had walked ahead of it out of Burma into India.
Henri Cartier-Bresson had been a French prisoner of war in German hands, had worked with the French Underground after escaping, and had been given a post-war retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art in New York in 1946. David Seymour, a Pole known as Chim, had been a much-published photographer before the war, and a great friend of Capa’s and Cartier-Bresson’s in Paris. He had spent the war years in the U.S. Army interpreting aerial reconnaissance photographs.
William Vandivert, the American, had worked for LIFE before and during the war. He stayed only a year with Magnum.
The original Magnum photographers were all in their mid thirties and experienced in working independently in the field. With peace the magazines, especially in the US, began expanding their activities, hiring younger photographers on staff . Quite naturally, editorial emphasis shifted to the interests of the troops coming home and the daily routine of newly united families.
Stories from far-off lands had to be beyond the scope of the magazine staff photographers. The small international group that created Magnum felt that tectonic changes would soon be creating a changed world, and they wanted to report on them.
Villagers looking at slides of themselves, Yumthang, North Sikkim. Marilyn Silverstone/Magnum Photos
In an effort to bring more photography on the Magnum Blog I am starting a new series of posts today called "Photo of the week". I admit... Posting a photo of the week is not a new idea but it's a nice way to share some more photographs from Magnum's enormous archive with you. Not much text - if text at all - other than the caption, just some visual joy.
Given the fact that Magnum's online archive currently consists of about 400.000 photographs I don't really have to worry about running out of adequate images. Even if every single Magnum photographer would stop shooting right now we'd have enough photographs for the next 7.692 years. Under these circumstances chances are pretty low that we will live to see the end of the "Photo of the week" series...
Today's photo of the week is a pretty well known one by Marilyn Silverstone but let's see which jewels the archive brings to the day of light that are less known...
John Szarkowski, Curator of Photography, died at age 81 on July 7, 2007. Elliott Erwitt remembers his friend.
John Szarkowski was a wickedly intelligent funny person and a great dinner companion. And he was surely the best and clearest thinker on the subject of photography whether one agreed or not with his muses. Quite apart from his writing talents and intellectual pursuits John had a profound knowledge of apples (the sort that grow on trees) and also was an accomplished classical clarinetist.
John's 29 year tenure at the Museum of Modern Art firmly established him as the worlds most important arbiter on photography and by current standards a conservative guru.
Then upon retiring from his commanding position in the art world John had the great courage to go back to his own photography that he had put on hold for so many years but never abandoned where he would be vulnerable and judged by the very people that he had previously judged.
As one of the many photographers who have been encouraged and supported and who have enjoyed his warm friendship I fully expect to meet him in photography heaven one day around a good dinner table with a fine bottle of Bordeaux. In the meantime I shall very much miss him.
Due to the fact that our former blog editor relocated to Stockholm it's been quiet on the Magnum Blog for a while. Time for a new start and some changes.
First of all I am going to briefly introduce myself. I am Martin Fuchs, an Austrian photographer and former intern at Magnum. Following my internship I have been freelancing for Magnum In Motion, the multimedia department, and various other departments for about two years. For my internship in 2005 I created my first blog (which is not updated anymore) and the blogging fever assumed power over me. It didn't let me go ever since and because I wanted to create a blog less tied to a certain location I created "Journal Of A Photographer".
The time I worked for Magnum proved to be a very valuable one. Imagine all the people you get to know and all the stories you get to hear... And over the long run I was even able to incorporate my blogging experience into Magnum. A couple of months ago I created the Magnum Blog and now I am very excited about the fact that I was asked to take over the editorial responsibilities for it.
This does not mean that I will be the one writing each and every article for this blog. It just means that I will try to gather as much information, stories, anecdotes and funny snippets for it as I can. Trying to give you a better insight into Magnum and what's going on. I will be in close touch with the photographers and one of our goals is to get them directly involved, to create a better way of communication and conversation between them and you.
Some of them such as Alec Soth and David Alan Harvey (the first two to start with) will become regular contributors to the blog. Both Alec and David have very interesting and successful blogs already. In case you don't know them yet check out Alec's blog and one or all four blogs of David Alan Harvey (1, 2, 3, 4).
There are many ideas and improvement suggestions that we want to incorporate and that we are working on. I am currently collecting content, I might change certain areas of the blog such as the links section a bit. But after all - you, our readers and visitors are the reason for this blog to exist and therefore I want this blog to become a more vital and valuable place for you to be.
I would like to ask you for a favor: It would be really great to hear your suggestions and ideas. What would you like to see and read here, what did you like so far and what did you find kind of odd? Please post your thoughts or e-mail me with any concerns you have about the blog at martin@magnumphotos.com.
This is a challenge and it's a good one. I am looking forward to all your comments and suggestions.
Chim was my kind caring uncle, who brought gifts of books and took photos of me and my family. My mother, Eileen Shneiderman, was his older sister, and she loved him dearly. Chim’s untimely death at age 45 during the Suez Crisis in 1956 was a tragic event in our home that as a 9-year old I remember well. My mother devoted her life to her brother’s legacy, helping with the founding of ICP, and promoting his work wherever possible, until she died at age 96, just two years ago. 
Continue reading 'Remembering My Uncle Chim'
As the festivities around Magnum's 60th birthday and the famously passionate AGM in New York City are over, Inge Bondi, who worked for Magnum for 20 years, looks back at the early years of the agency.
John Szarkowski, Curator of Photography, died at age 81 on July 7, 2007. Elliott Erwitt remembers his friend.
