During World War II, Vaccaro was drafted into the U.S. Army and fought on the Western front for two years. After serving as a private in the 83rd Infantry Division, he returned to the United States and worked for various publications like LIFE and Look Magazine, cementing his status as one of the most important photographers of the 20th century.
His most famous works, however, remain those that he took during the war in Europe.
Capturing the War
As Vaccaro flipped through his photographs, he demonstrated how the lines within each frame converged at the vanishing point, while lying parallel to each other. He drew a set of lines to illustrate his point.
There was an underlying principle behind his need for such meticulous attention to composition: “[In] photography, you always must have order, always. … Every sense we have likes something and doesn’t like other things. The eye also is the same way. It likes certain lines, it doesn’t like other lines.”
Vaccaro went on to describe the human muscles that control eye movement and the need for both the photograph and the moving picture to accommodate the way the eye perceives. What is comfortable for the eyes is also visually appealing. “The eye is very simple. Beautiful, but very simple. … This is what tells you what’s a beautiful picture and what’s not a beautiful picture. If the picture makes you [your eyes] work hard, it is not a good picture.”
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Vaccaro’s preference for simplicity is evident in his works: He often captures moments that are sparing in composition, but packed with emotional feeling. For example, when Vaccaro came to the photos of the Normandy landings on D-Day, he stopped at one of American soldiers stepping into a jet before heading to France, as people bid farewell to them in the background. Vaccaro recalled, “Most of the Air Force pilots were shot to death by the German soldiers before they landed in Normandy.”
Another photo captured a soldier at the moment just before he was shot and killed. Of the piece titled “The Last Step of PFC Jack W. Rose,” Vaccaro said, “Jack was my buddy from New York. This picture was taken on Jan. 11, 1945, in a battle that liberated Belgium.
“I was hiding behind a tree while Jack was shot. I had a gun in one hand and the camera in the other hand. I took this picture of him before he fell to the ground and never got up again.”
At the Battle of the Bulge, which occurred from Dec. 16, 1944, to Jan. 25, 1945, on the border of Belgium and Luxemburg, Private Henry Tannenbaum from New York was killed in action. After one of the war’s deadliest battles had ended, Henry Tannenbaum’s body was found untouched, lying face down on the ground. White snow had fallen and blanketed the entire frame, covering the deceased soldier until one could only make out his boots, backpack, and helmet, and the rifle that lay tossed to the side.
Almost everyone in the division was killed except for the platoon sergeant, Harry Shoemaker, who survived to tell Henry Tannenbaum’s story.
Harry Shoemaker and Tony Vaccaro later returned to the battlefield, which by then was filled with grotesque dead bodies. Only Tannenbaum’s body lay peacefully in the snow. Vaccaro took this picture and named it “White Death: Photo Requiem for a Dead Soldier, Private Henry I. Tannenbaum.” The photo went on travel exhibition throughout Europe for half a century.
Forty-five years later, Vaccaro and Henry Tannenbaum’s son visited the forest where his father was killed. Coincidentally, they discovered that the area had been converted into a Christmas tree farm—“Tannenbaum” is German for “fir tree,” and fir trees are widely used as Christmas trees.
Next...The horrors of war that Vaccaro witnessed
The horrors of war that Vaccaro witnessed first-hand have only made his search for beauty all the more meaningful and poignant. Vaccaro writes in his book “Entering Germany: Photographs 1944–1949”: “In my war pictures I moved the camera lens on the tragedy in the hope that the horror and the absurdity of these scenes could create different human perspectives.
“For this reason, I remained another four years in the war theatre of Europe, to document with my images that peace was possible even there, where they had fought bloody battles. I have always believed that our duty as men is to leave the world a better place, better than we found it.”
Going Beyond Words
For Vaccaro, photography is not only a visual medium, but a way to connect with people without the contrivances and limitations of language. “Photographs have meaning, so that photography took me into the soul of people. To meet Picasso, to be able to interpret him, my way. … The camera was my card to any person in the world.”
Words make unnecessary distinctions between the self and other, causing conflict and war. “Our brain is designed to defend yourself from the one who wants to kill you. … We apply that brain knowledge to things that we are not: we are not Chinese, we are not Americans. … That’s the mistake we are making. It’s language. It’s killing us. Wrong words, viral words, is what’s killing us.”
Having experienced and captured on camera one of history’s most brutal wars, Vaccaro is all too familiar with the disastrous consequences of hatred. Photography is able to transcend human differences and instead communicate through emotion, something universal to all. For Vaccaro, the power of the image brings him hope for humanity.
He believes a good photographer must possess this passion for peace. “You must love nature, you must love mankind. To me, there are no Americans, no Chinese, no Japanese, no Russians, but humanity. We are humans,” he said.
An Illustrious Career
After the end of the war, Vaccaro became the photographer for the U.S. authorities stationed in Frankfurt. In the meantime, he worked for Weekend, the Sunday supplement of the U.S. Army newspaper Stars and Stripes. Until 1949, Vaccaro stayed in Europe to document post-war life there.
In his book “Entering Germany,” for example, Vaccaro followed the beleaguered nation on its road to recovery and reconstruction. He captured various facets of life in Germany, among them a photo of the ruins of Nuremberg and a legless man selling knickknacks on the streets of Frankfurt, but also snapshots of the beautiful scenery on the Rhine and the lively night life in the city.
Following his return to the United States in 1949, Vaccaro worked for a number of magazine publications, allowing him the opportunity to photograph many celebrities and well-known figures from the 50s to the 70s. Among them were President John F. Kennedy, President Richard Nixon, Jackson Pollock, celebrated architect Frank Lloyd Wright, and Italian actress Sophia Lauren.
Vaccaro is always able to portray the unique characteristics of his subjects. In order to take a portrait of British philosopher Bertrand Russell, Vaccaro threw a tough question at him and made him fall into deep thinking, capturing the man in action.
Vaccaro’s 72-year career as a photographer received its greatest honor when he was awarded the French Légion d’honneur by the French government in 1994 at the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the invasion of Normandy.
At almost 90 years of age, Vaccaro is still working. As his works continue to be exhibited in museums and galleries around the world, he is currently preparing for his 13th book. Vaccaro also does not forget his New York roots. Most recently, his photos of Jackson Pollock were on exhibition at the late painter’s Long Island home.
Read the original Chinese article.
Watch an interview with Tony Vaccaro on NTD Television.
