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George Rodger

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Photographer

The Resume

    (March 19, 1908-July 24, 1995)
    Born in Hale, Cheshire, United Kingdom
    George William A. Rodger
    British photojournalist
    Served as an Allied war correspondent for Life magazine during World War II
    Covered the liberation of France, Belgium and Holland
    First photographer to enter the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp upon its liberation (Apr., 1945)
    Later embarked on a freelance 28,000 mile trek across Africa and the Middle East; profiling the local customs, animal life, and landscape
    Published 'Red Moon Rising,' 'Desert Journey,' 'Village des Noubas,' 'Le Sahara,' and 'Humanity and Inhumanity'
    Founding member of the Magnum Foundation, along with Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, David Seymour and Bill Vandivert (1947)
    Father of 'Hunger Games' assistant director, Peter Rodger

Why he might be annoying:

    He aspired to be a writer, but was unable to get his travelogues published.
    He wouldn't visit London until he was in his late twenties, even though as a sailor he had traveled around the world three times by 1929.
    His Magnum biography claims that he 'got himself fired' after returning to life post-WWII.
    Historian Martin K.A. Morgan called him a 'zelig character who just so happened to be in the center of things during the second World War.'
    When he accompanied the British Army into Belsen, he claimed to have been more appalled by having to find 'graphically pleasing compositions' for the piles of dead bodies, which he felt made him 'like the people running the camp,' than anything else.
    He is the grandfather of Elliot Rodger, who killed six and wounded fourteen in a murder-suicide in the Isla Vista shootings of 2014.

Why he might not be annoying:

    He was a self-taught photographer.
    His pictures of the London Blitz brought him to the attention of Life magazine, who gave him a job as a war correspondent.
    He covered Free French activities in West Africa, later winning 18 campaign medals for his courage.
    He made a trip to Cape-to-Cairo to photograph the Kordofan Nuba tribe for National Geographic, in 1951.
    He made more than fifteen expeditions to Africa, from 1947 to 1980, sometimes visiting tribes that hadn't even seen a white person before.
    He captured the brutality and horrors of the Nazi Final Solution.
    He was traumatized by his experiences photographing WWII and the atrocities committed (he opted to never work as a war correspondent again).
    His photos of the masses of dead bodies in Belsen are usually the ones featured in school textbooks and are usually the images people think of when they discuss 'the Holocaust.'
    He said of photography: 'You must be part of it, and yet remain sufficiently detached to see it objectively. Like watching from the audience a play you know by heart.'

Credit: BoyWiththeGreenHair


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    In 2023, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 6 Votes: 83.33% Annoying
    In 2020, Out of 3 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 2 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 7 Votes: 42.86% Annoying