Our ongoing Cinematographers Series–the last installment of which appeared in our March 19th Spring Directors Issue–has put us, and hopefully you, more in touch with the artistry of assorted shooters over the years.
Yet putting us even more deeply in touch with that artistry–and its potential to impact our lives–was the passing last month of photojournalist Charles Moore at the age of 79. Moore died Thursday, March 11, of natural causes at a nursing home in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.
Moore’s career is a testament to the power of a single image–and it doesn’t necessarily have to be a moving image. Paradoxically, though, Moore’s still images were moving, figuratively. They were images that moved people to action and our society to a better place.
From the late 1950s to the mid ’60s, Moore covered the civil rights movement as a photographer for the Montgomery Advertiser (Alabama) as well as Life magazine.
The images Moore captured–sometimes at his own personal peril–helped to put the national spotlight on injustices, building public opinion and momentum that eventually led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Moore began photographing the then relatively unknown Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. in Montgomery in 1958, a pivotal image that year being of King getting manhandled while being booked at a police station. The photo appeared in Life magazine as did Moore’s photos of Ku Klux Klan meetings and rioting over the enrollment of James Meredith, the first African-American student at the University of Mississippi.
There were also images of civil rights movement protestors being attacked by police dogs and doused with water from a fire truck hose.
The latter image came in 1963 as students demonstrated in Birmingham, Ala., to spur on desegregation only to find themselves pinned against a building by water spurting from a high-pressure hose.
The son of a Baptist minister, Moore was born in Hackleburg, Ala., and was raised in the nearby town of Tuscumbia. He took up boxing as a teenager, later quipping that he turned in his boxing gloves for a camera.
This led to the title of the 2005 documentary, Charles Moore: I Fight With My Camera.
Moore served in the Marine Corps as a photographer, then studied at Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara, Calif. Moore returned to Alabama in ’57 and joined the Montgomery Advertiser.
Later on in his professional career, Moore brought his photojournalism to bear on the Vietnam War, as well as political unrest in Haiti and Venezuela.
Still, it was his coverage of the civil rights movement which has endured most of all.
In fact, a book was published in 1991 chronicling that work: “Powerful Days: The Civil Rights Photography of Charles Moore.”
Moore’s obituary in the Los Angeles Times cited an interview he did with the Birmingham News in ’02, in which he related, “I know the importance isn’t me, but the photographs. It’s proof that the world learned a lot from them. Honestly, if those pictures made my native South, which I love, a better place…then I am darn proud of that.”
Gene Hackman Died Of Heart Disease; Hantavirus Claimed His Wife’s Life About One Week Prior
Actor Gene Hackman died of heart disease a full week after his wife died from hantavirus in their New Mexico hillside home, likely unaware that she was dead because he was in the advanced stages of Alzheimer's disease, authorities revealed Friday. Both deaths were ruled to be from natural causes, chief medical examiner Dr. Heather Jarrell said alongside state fire and health officials at a news conference. "Mr. Hackman showed evidence of advanced Alzheimer's disease," Jarrell said. "He was in a very poor state of health. He had significant heart disease, and I think ultimately that's what resulted in his death." Authorities didn't suspect foul play after the bodies of Hackman, 95, and Betsy Arakawa, 65, were discovered Feb 26. Immediate tests for carbon monoxide poisoning were negative. Investigators found that the last known communication and activity from Arakawa was Feb. 11 when she visited a pharmacy, pet store and grocery before returning to their gated neighborhood that afternoon, Santa Fe County Sheriff Adan Mendoza said Friday. Hackman's pacemaker last showed signs of activity a week later and that he had an abnormal heart rhythm Feb. 18, the day he likely died, Jarrell said. Although there was no reliable way to determine the date and time when both died, all signs point to their deaths coming a week apart, Jarrell said. "It's quite possible he was not aware she was deceased," Jarrell said. Dr. Michael Baden, a former New York City medical examiner, said he believes Hackman was severely impaired due to Alzheimer's disease and unable to deal with his wife's death in the last week of his life. "You are talking about very severe Alzheimer's disease that normal people would be in a nursing home or have a nurse, but she was taking care... Read More