Looking Back At Life

Posted by Arthur Meyerson

For my generation, Life magazine was THE magazine when magazines were as important as television. I remember getting home from school each week, grabbing a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and thumbing through the latest issue. Those pictures took me places that I never thought I would go, introduced me to people I never thought I’d meet and showed me things I never thought I’d see. It really was my first introduction to photography. And, in an age when magazine photography was at its zenith, it WAS the publication all photographers wanted to shoot for.

So I was surprised when I found out years later that the man who would become my friend and mentor, Ernst Haas, had turned Life down after being offered a staff photographer position. (On the other hand, knowing Ernst as I knew him, it really wasn’t a surprise. He once told me that he made his reputation by saying “No”.) The story I was told was that after deciding not to take their offer, Ernst (28 years old at the time) wrote a letter turning Life’s offer down that he gave to Magnum (his agency at the time) and asked that they deliver for him. Someone at Magnum read the letter and decided it was wasn’t quite appropriate to send and decided to call Life’s picture editor to respectfully decline the offer for Ernst. Years later after Ernst had left Magnum, someone presented with his original letter and told him the story which he thought was very funny since he had done over 19 stories for the magazine by then.

Those of us who knew him were privledged and inspired. Considered by many to be the father of color photography, he was also a poet and a philosopher who spoke eloquently on the subject of photography. He was also a man of humor, wit, charm and great integrity as illustrated in the following excerpts from that letter to Life (dated 11/10/49 from the book, Ernst Haas in Black and White, by Jim Hughes and Alexander Haas, Bulfinch , 1992):

“There are two kinds of photographers--- the ones who take pictures for a magazine to earn something, and the others who gain by taking pictures they are interested in. I am the second kind. I don’t believe in the in-between success of becoming famous as quickly as possible. I believe in the end-success of a man’s work as developing into a real human being, aware of the connection in life between our earth and the cosmos; a person able to understand the mistakes, and to admire the achievements, of other people… I have always felt better taking a risk rather than an easier route, for what I believe in. I am young enough to do that and I am full of energy and hope to reach my goal. I prefer to be noticed, some day, first for my ideas and second for my good eye… Maybe you will think I have not got my two feet quite on the ground. But if a photographer wants to show an overall, he must find a shooting point higher up… What I want is to stay free, so that I can carry out my ideas… I don’t think there are many editors who could give me the assignments I give myself.”

To learn more about Ernst Haas and to see his work go to: www.ernst-haas.com