George Rodger
A photographer frequently found in the theatre of war who had empathy and understanding of his subjects,
Ask most photographers what they know about George Rodger (1908-1995) and they’ll tell you that he was one of the founders of Magnum. After that, they are most likely to recall either his war photographs or his post-war African work. He worked in more theatres of war than most, beginning with the Blitz in London. Thereafter, under the auspices of Life magazine, he covered conflict in West Africa and Burma, the Italian landings, the D-Day landings in Normandy, and subsequently the liberation of much of Europe including Paris. He was also one of the first photographers into Belsen; which leads directly to his African photography.
By his own account, he realised that something had gone badly wrong when he found himself searching for the best compositions when photographing stacks of emaciated corpses in concentration camps. He decided to go to Africa and photograph people who had been unaffected, or only slightly or tangentially affected, by the carnage he had witnessed, experienced and photographed.
Founding Magnum
Shortly aftewards, in the spring of 1947, he was one of the five founding members of Magnum. Somewhat grandiosely, they divided up the globe between them, though Capa (who seems to have been the originator of the cooperative) reserved the right to roam freely. David Seymour (‘Chim’) took Europe; Bill Vandivert, the USA; CartierBresson, India and the Far East; and Rodger, Africa and the Middle East. A Hungarian, a Pole, an American, a Frenchman and an Englishman walk into a picture agency they’ve just founded...
Discovering photography
Rodger originally taught himself photography so that he could illustrate his travel writing, but as it turned out, he wasn’t all that good as a writer. Photography was another matter and by about 1936 he was a staff photographer on the BBC’s The Listener magazine, photographing guest speakers for the wireless. In 1936, the BBC launched the world’s first high-definition television service, but with the outbreak of war, Rodger’s job disappeared, leaving him unemployed.
Photography was however a reserved occupation (i.e. photographers were not automatically subject to conscription) and so he was able to start working for the Black Star agency – also founded in 1936 – and this rapidly turned into a contract with Life magazine (1936 yet again), with which Black Star had a very close relationship; hence his subsequent career as a war correspondent.
It is hard to say whether he had a particular photographic style, because his pictures vary enormously. There are dramatic group action shots such as the one seen here; groups or crowds where one person stands out; and individuals, sometimes very poignant. Often we feel a strange sense of familiarity even if their circumstances are unbelievably different from our own: an air raid warden in the Blitz, perhaps, or a Nuba tribesman half a century and more ago. This, in truth, was his style: enormous sympathy with, and understanding of, his subjects.