Ian Berry
Encyclopedia
Photography career
Berry moved to South Africa in 1952, where he soon taught himself photography. He worked under the tutelage of Roger Madden, a South African photographer who had been an assistant to Ansel AdamsAnsel Adams
Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist, best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West, especially in Yosemite National Park....
. After some time as an amateur photographer, Berry began photographing communities and weddings. During this period he met Jürgen Schadeberg
Jürgen Schadeberg
-Overview:Jürgen Schadeberg was born in Berlin in 1931. In 1950, he moved to South Africa to rejoin his family and joined Drum magazine as official photographer and layout artist....
, also a European immigrant and photographer. Schadeberg was offered a position with the new African Sunday newspaper eGoli but declined, suggesting Berry apply for the position instead. After working there only 10 months, the newspaper closed, and Berry began working for the Benoni
Benoni, Gauteng
Benoni is a city with 654,509 inhabitants on the East Rand in the South African province of Gauteng. Since 2000, it has been part of the Ekurhuleni Metropolitan Municipality.- History :...
City Times, but he soon became more interested in freelance work.
Berry returned to Great Britain and traveled for some time but returned to South Africa in the early 1960s and worked for the Daily Mail
Daily Mail
The Daily Mail is a British daily middle-market tabloid newspaper owned by the Daily Mail and General Trust. First published in 1896 by Lord Northcliffe, it is the United Kingdom's second biggest-selling daily newspaper after The Sun. Its sister paper The Mail on Sunday was launched in 1982...
. Later Tom Hopkinson, previously editor of the British Picture Post
Picture Post
Picture Post was a prominent photojournalistic magazine published in the United Kingdom from 1938 to 1957. It is considered a pioneering example of photojournalism and was an immediate success, selling 1,700,000 copies a week after only two months...
, hired Berry to work for Drum magazine. He was in Sharpeville on March 21, 1960, when a peaceful protest turned violent, leading to the deaths of 69 people and the wounding of 178 others by police. There were no other photographs documenting the events, and Berry's were entered into evidence in the court proceedings proving that the victims had done nothing wrong. Berry was invited by Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer considered to be the father of modern photojournalism. He was an early adopter of 35 mm format, and the master of candid photography...
to join Magnum Photos
Magnum Photos
Magnum Photos is an international photographic cooperative owned by its photographer-members, with offices located in New York, Paris, London and Tokyo...
in 1962 when he was based in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
; five years later he became a full member. In 1964 he moved to London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and began working for Observer Magazine. He has since traveled the globe, documenting social and political strife in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
, Republic of Congo, Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...
, Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
, Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, Ireland
Ireland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
, Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, and the former Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. He has contributed to publications including Esquire
Esquire (magazine)
Esquire is a men's magazine, published in the U.S. by the Hearst Corporation. Founded in 1932, it flourished during the Great Depression under the guidance of founder and editor Arnold Gingrich.-History:...
, Fortune
Fortune (magazine)
Fortune is a global business magazine published by Time Inc. Founded by Henry Luce in 1930, the publishing business, consisting of Time, Life, Fortune, and Sports Illustrated, grew to become Time Warner. In turn, AOL grew as it acquired Time Warner in 2000 when Time Warner was the world's largest...
, Geo
GEO (magazine)
GEO is a family of educational monthly magazines similar to the National Geographic magazine. It is known for its profound reports, which are accompanied by opulent pictures.The first edition appeared in Germany in 1976...
, 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....
, National Geographic, Paris-Match, and Stern
Stern (magazine)
Stern is a weekly news magazine published in Germany. It was founded in 1948 by Henri Nannen, and is currently published by Gruner + Jahr, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann. In the first quarter of 2006, its print run was 1.019 million copies and it reached 7.84 million readers according to...
.
Berry's photographs have been exhibited world-wide and some are now included in the Magnum Photos: Photographic Collection at the Harry Ransom Center, University of Texas at Austin.
Awards
- 2005—National photography magazine award for lifetime achievement in photography
- 1996—Made Honorary Fellow of the Royal Photographic SocietyRoyal Photographic SocietyThe Royal Photographic Society is the world's oldest national photographic society. It was founded in London, United Kingdom in 1853 as The Photographic Society of London with the objective of promoting the Art and Science of Photography...
- 1990—Made Honorary Fellow, University of Lancashire
- 1981—1981 Pix of Year, magazine news, Award from Missouri School of JournalismMissouri School of JournalismThe Missouri School of Journalism at University of Missouri in Columbia, claims to be the oldest formal journalism school in the world. Founded in 1908, only the Ecole Supérieure de Journalisme de Paris established in 1899 may be older...
and National Press Photographers AssociationNational Press Photographers AssociationNPPA is the acronym for the National Press Photographers Association, founded in 1947. The organization is based in Durham, North Carolina and its mostly made up of still photographers, television videographers, editors, and students in the journalism field... - 1977--NikonNikon, also known as just Nikon, is a multinational corporation headquartered in Tokyo, Japan, specializing in optics and imaging. Its products include cameras, binoculars, microscopes, measurement instruments, and the steppers used in the photolithography steps of semiconductor fabrication, of which...
Photographer of Year Award (first ever) - 1974—Awarded British Arts Council's first major photographic bursary (led to his book, The English)
- 1969—Art Director's Club of New York Award
- 1960--British Press Pictures, Feature Photographer of Year Award
- 1959—British Press Pictures, Feature Photographer of Year Award
- 1959—Nikon World Photo Contest Awards - 1st and 3rd
Books
- Black and Whites: L'Afrique du Sud with a foreword by François Mitterrand, 1988
- Living Apart, text by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. Phaidon Press, 1996. ISBN 978-0714835235
- The English, 1978
- Mar: A Pesca en Galicia, 2008
- Sold into Slavery, CDP editions, 2008. ISBN 978-2351300329
- Ian Berry, I Grandi Fotografi, 2006
- In Our Time: The World As Seen by MAGNUM Photographers. W. W. Norton, 1990. ISBN 978-0393311297
- Les Grands Travaux with Martine FranckMartine FranckMartine Franck is a Belgian photographer, and a member of the Magnum Photos agency. She was the second wife of photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson after his divorce from Ratna Mohini, and is president and co-founder of the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation, which administrates his estate.- Biography...
and Rene BurriRené BurriRené Burri is a Swiss photographer known for his photos of major political, historical and cultural events and key figures of the second half of the 20th century. Burri worked for Magnum Photos and has been photographing political, military and artistic figures and scenes since 1946...
, France: RMN, 1989 - World Photography: 25 Great Photographers by Bryn Campbell, 1981