Bernard Hoffman
Encyclopedia
Bernard Hoffman was an American
photographer and documentary photographer
. The bulk of his photographic journalism was done during the first 18 years of the revamped Life
magazine, starting in 1936. During this time he produced many photo essays, including a shoot with Carl Sandburg in 1938. He is, perhaps, most known as the first American photographer on the ground at Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945, providing some harrowing glimpses into the destructive power of the bomb.
After leaving Life in 1951, Hoffman went on to establish Bernard Hoffman Laboratories, a company dedicated to improving the technology for professional photography. The lab was well-known enough that in 1963 he was brought on to process film from the Kennedy assassination, leading to support for belief in the infamous "shooter on the grassy knoll." Following the sale of the lab in 1973, he spent his retirement years running photography workshops with his wife, Inez. Hoffman died of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
(also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease) in 1979.
In 1935, he accepted a job as staff photographer for Life, the first of the original four members of that department, as Henry Luce
revamped the publication into an all-photographic American news magazine.
After the magazine's launch, Bernard Hoffman covered a dizzying number of assignments worldwide, ranging from the glamorous to the deadly. According to the International Center of Photography in a brochure for a Bernard Hoffman exhibit, "...politics, heavy industry, science, medicine, beauty, sports, animals, theatre, agriculture, art, photo-micrography, motion pictures. Name it, he did it."
Notable events during his 18 years with Life include:
Of Hoffman's photography in covering the war in the China-Burma-India Theatre, General "Vinegar" Joe Stilwell said, "It is the best collection of pictures of this type that I have ever seen."
Hoffman left Life in 1951 to pursue freelance photojournalism.
BHL set an aggressive pace towards improving the technology of photography, and was earmarked as "one of the two most interesting and progressive labs going" by Minor White
. The lab made several noteworthy additions to the field, including chemical formulas that made it possible to shoot full detail motion photos in low illumination, a montage process for combining many photographs without the need of airbrushing, a new lens design with the ability to focus from four inches to infinity, and process of bringing detail to badly under-exposed negatives.
During his tenure with the company, Hoffman gained such acclaim that his labs were used to process much of the footage from the assassination of John F. Kennedy
in 1963. The resulting detailed prints led to the belief that a person aiming a rifle at the President stood atop a car behind a wall near the path of the motorcade.
Additionally, the United States Atomic Energy Commission
regularly consulted BHL as an expert in important film and print analyses.
Hoffman sold the custom lab business and retired in 1973 after suffering a mild cardiac arrest.
Following this, he started a small home-based photography training course to teach new students the art in 1974, in partnership with his wife, Inez. One of his early students, John DeSanto, went on to become a well-known American photojournalist and is currently Director of Photography of the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, New York.
The training business closed in late 1978, due to Hoffman's deteriorating health. Hoffman died of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
(also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease) in November 1979.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
photographer and documentary photographer
Documentary photography
Documentary photography usually refers to a popular form of photography used to chronicle significant and historical events. It is typically covered in professional photojournalism, but it may also be an amateur, artistic, or academic pursuit...
. The bulk of his photographic journalism was done during the first 18 years of the revamped Life
Life (magazine)
Life generally refers to three American magazines:*A humor and general interest magazine published from 1883 to 1936. Time founder Henry Luce bought the magazine in 1936 solely so that he could acquire the rights to its name....
magazine, starting in 1936. During this time he produced many photo essays, including a shoot with Carl Sandburg in 1938. He is, perhaps, most known as the first American photographer on the ground at Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the atomic bomb was dropped in 1945, providing some harrowing glimpses into the destructive power of the bomb.
After leaving Life in 1951, Hoffman went on to establish Bernard Hoffman Laboratories, a company dedicated to improving the technology for professional photography. The lab was well-known enough that in 1963 he was brought on to process film from the Kennedy assassination, leading to support for belief in the infamous "shooter on the grassy knoll." Following the sale of the lab in 1973, he spent his retirement years running photography workshops with his wife, Inez. Hoffman died of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis , also referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a form of motor neuron disease caused by the degeneration of upper and lower neurons, located in the ventral horn of the spinal cord and the cortical neurons that provide their efferent input...
(also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease) in 1979.
Early life
Bernard Hoffman was born in New York City in 1913, and little is publicly known about his youth, besides the fact that he received a camera as a birthday present in 1931, when he was 18 years of age. Hoffman used the camera to snap photos of friends skinny dipping, but was told by the local shopkeeper that they would not develop the film into prints. He decided to take matters into his own hands and purchased a kit to develop the pictures himself. This incident would chart the course of his entire adult life.In 1935, he accepted a job as staff photographer for Life, the first of the original four members of that department, as Henry Luce
Henry Luce
Henry Robinson Luce was an influential American publisher. He launched and closely supervised a stable of magazines that transformed journalism and the reading habits of upscale Americans...
revamped the publication into an all-photographic American news magazine.
Life Magazine
Hoffman was brought on board approximately one year before the relaunch of Life would turn the magazine from its original format into a photojournal of modern American life. In his role as staff photographer, Hoffman worked on dummy layouts and design elements prior to the reworked magazine's debut on November 23, 1936, as well as contributing photography for the first issue.After the magazine's launch, Bernard Hoffman covered a dizzying number of assignments worldwide, ranging from the glamorous to the deadly. According to the International Center of Photography in a brochure for a Bernard Hoffman exhibit, "...politics, heavy industry, science, medicine, beauty, sports, animals, theatre, agriculture, art, photo-micrography, motion pictures. Name it, he did it."
Notable events during his 18 years with Life include:
- To illustrate an essay on the "World of Animals," he blindfolded a rattlesnake and stuffed cotton in a shark's nostrils.
- He reported the social effects of the dictatorship in PortugalPortugalPortugal , officially the Portuguese Republic is a country situated in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Portugal is the westernmost country of Europe, and is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the West and South and by Spain to the North and East. The Atlantic archipelagos of the...
during 1937.
- While on one of the first transatlantic commercial flights, aboard a Boeing flying boat, Hoffman had Archduke Otto of Hapsburg hold his flashes while photographing the plane's interior. The flight took 19 hours to travel from New York City to the Azores in Portugal.
- Hoffman covered actor John BarrymoreJohn BarrymoreJohn Sidney Blyth , better known as John Barrymore, was an acclaimed American actor. He first gained fame as a handsome stage actor in light comedy, then high drama and culminating in groundbreaking portrayals in Shakespearean plays Hamlet and Richard III...
a number of times. During a performance of Barrymore's last play, My Dear Children, the actor had to run out on stage and kiss his then new wife, Elaine Barry, and run off stage again. With Hoffman in the audience, Barrymore performed the bit as usual, but then without any warning ran back out onto the stage and shouted to Hoffman, "Did you get that picture, Bernie?"
- In one day, Hoffman was given assignments with short deadlines in three different states. Editor Wilson Hicks gave him the advice, "If this is too tough, you can always cut your throat." Hoffman chartered a private plane to cover a rifle match, Gold Cup motorboat races, and a thigh operation.
- One of Hoffman's most cherished memories were that of poet Carl SandburgCarl SandburgCarl Sandburg was an American writer and editor, best known for his poetry. He won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and another for a biography of Abraham Lincoln. H. L. Mencken called Carl Sandburg "indubitably an American in every pulse-beat."-Biography:Sandburg was born in Galesburg,...
, a man Hoffman referred to as "the only genius I have ever met." He and Sandburg became close friends, and Hoffman's photos of Sandburg singing to his goats in the living room became an instant classic Life photo essay in the February 31, 1938 issue, om which Hoffman also received a cover photo credit.
- The sculpture The KissThe Kiss (Rodin sculpture)The Kiss is an 1889 marble sculpture by the French sculptor Auguste Rodin. Like many of Rodin's best-known individual sculptures, including The Thinker, the embracing couple depicted in the sculpture appeared originally as part of a group of reliefs decorating Rodin's monumental bronze portal The...
, by Auguste RodinAuguste RodinFrançois-Auguste-René Rodin , known as Auguste Rodin , was a French sculptor. Although Rodin is generally considered the progenitor of modern sculpture, he did not set out to rebel against the past...
, got Hoffman and Life in some trouble. His layouts on the art exhibition came out so lifelike that the magazine was temporarily banned in Boston and Argentina on morality grounds.
- Dropped via parachute behind enemy lines in the Burmese jungle in 1943, Hoffman brought back the story of the trapped battalion of Merrill's MaraudersMerrill's MaraudersMerrill’s Marauders or Unit Galahad, officially named the 5307th Composite Unit , was a United States Army long range penetration special operations unit in the South-East Asian Theater of World War II which fought in the China-Burma-India Theater of Operations, or CBI...
. On the way to the drop destination, Japanese Zeros shot the wheels off the plane he was in, which diverted the flight to a clearing behind the lines. Of the 500 men in the Marauders, only Hoffman and 35 others emerged from the jungle. Back home, his wife and Life editors had no word on his whereabouts for over eight weeks. Of this event, Hoffman quipped, "Risk? There was no risk, I had my press card!"
- To take a dangerous photo sequence of a 500 lb. bomb detonating, Hoffman placed his camera two and a half feet from the center of impact. When the bomb left the plane, he pressed the automatic shutter release and ran. The bomb exploded only 20 feet away from him, and when the dust cleared, he found the bomb had hit precisely where it was supposed to, getting Hoffman accolades for the innovative shots featured in Lifes November 15, 1943 issue.
- Hoffman was on board the first low-level B-29 air raid on Japan.
- On special assignment, Hoffman was the first American photojournalist on the ground in HiroshimaHiroshimais the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chūgoku region of western Honshu, the largest island of Japan. It became best known as the first city in history to be destroyed by a nuclear weapon when the United States Army Air Forces dropped an atomic bomb on it at 8:15 A.M...
and NagasakiNagasakiis the capital and the largest city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Nagasaki was founded by the Portuguese in the second half of the 16th century on the site of a small fishing village, formerly part of Nishisonogi District...
in 1945, recording the devastating effects of the atomic bomb blastsAtomic bombings of Hiroshima and NagasakiDuring the final stages of World War II in 1945, the United States conducted two atomic bombings against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, the first on August 6, 1945, and the second on August 9, 1945. These two events are the only use of nuclear weapons in war to date.For six months...
while the peace agreement was being signed aboard the USS Missouri. The results were featured on the cover, an in-depth photo essay, and as "Picture of the Week" in Life's October 15, 1945 issue. One tragically ironic photo captured the image of a seven-year-old's skeleton lying in the debris of her home, while a fragile vase sat untouched next to the body.
- As a correspondent under the watch of Major Tex McCrary, Hoffman was permitted to photograph the horrors of German's concentration camps. Said Hoffman of this assignment, "I try not to feel anything when I am taking pictures of something unpleasant. I detach myself and concentrate on the picture. After seeing the camps, many of the war correspondents wanted to stop right there, but it was important to continue and record everything."
Of Hoffman's photography in covering the war in the China-Burma-India Theatre, General "Vinegar" Joe Stilwell said, "It is the best collection of pictures of this type that I have ever seen."
Hoffman left Life in 1951 to pursue freelance photojournalism.
Bernard Hoffman Laboratories and the JFK Assassination
Without the resources of Lifes labs behind him, Hoffman very quickly found dissatisfaction with the development labs available to freelance and professional photographers. To remedy this, he founded Bernard Hoffman Laboratories (BHL), with the goal of providing the highest possible quality prints from negatives of all sorts.BHL set an aggressive pace towards improving the technology of photography, and was earmarked as "one of the two most interesting and progressive labs going" by Minor White
Minor White
Minor Martin White was an American photographer born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.White earned a degree in botany with a minor in English from the University of Minnesota in 1933. His first creative efforts were in poetry, as he took five years thereafter to complete a sequence of 100 sonnets while...
. The lab made several noteworthy additions to the field, including chemical formulas that made it possible to shoot full detail motion photos in low illumination, a montage process for combining many photographs without the need of airbrushing, a new lens design with the ability to focus from four inches to infinity, and process of bringing detail to badly under-exposed negatives.
During his tenure with the company, Hoffman gained such acclaim that his labs were used to process much of the footage from the assassination of John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
in 1963. The resulting detailed prints led to the belief that a person aiming a rifle at the President stood atop a car behind a wall near the path of the motorcade.
Additionally, the United States Atomic Energy Commission
United States Atomic Energy Commission
The United States Atomic Energy Commission was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by Congress to foster and control the peace time development of atomic science and technology. President Harry S...
regularly consulted BHL as an expert in important film and print analyses.
Hoffman sold the custom lab business and retired in 1973 after suffering a mild cardiac arrest.
Late life
After officially retiring from business life, Bernard Hoffman published a book, The Man From Kankakee in 1973, chronicling the life of Romy Hammes, a self-made millionaire whom he had first met in 1938 when he photographed Hammes for Life.Following this, he started a small home-based photography training course to teach new students the art in 1974, in partnership with his wife, Inez. One of his early students, John DeSanto, went on to become a well-known American photojournalist and is currently Director of Photography of the Times Herald-Record in Middletown, New York.
The training business closed in late 1978, due to Hoffman's deteriorating health. Hoffman died of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis , also referred to as Lou Gehrig's disease, is a form of motor neuron disease caused by the degeneration of upper and lower neurons, located in the ventral horn of the spinal cord and the cortical neurons that provide their efferent input...
(also known as Lou Gehrig's Disease) in November 1979.