New York City. 1951. It was the portrait of Magnum photographer Dennis Stock, although most of his face remained in shadow. It won its photographer Andreas Feininger ‘LIFE Young Photographers Contest’ in 1951. Stock holding a Leica SM camera vertically to face and looking through a seperate TEWE viewfinder (which balanced the photo for compositional reasons) symbolizes the transformation of photojournalists into mechanized insects.
Dennis Stock later took the most famous pictures of James Dean. The above photo came to be identified with photojournalism so much that LIFE magazine used it as the cover of their book, “What They Saw”.
Iconic Photos 
It was Dennis Stock (age 23)–and not Feininger–who won the 1951 Life’s Young Photographers Contest. Please see Stock’s bio at Magnum Photos: http://tinyurl.com/kpoxg8
“The Photojournalist” has been one of my favorite images years. I was thrilled to finally find affordable posters at allposters.com.
can anyone tell me how this was shot? am I right in thinking he was lit from behind and a spot light on his face? I have to replicate this image for College
[…] of post-war Hollywood, Dennis Stock–who died last week in Florida–was more famous for the iconic photograph he posed for Andreas Feininger. Stock’s own most famous photograph is probably that of James Dean hunched on the Times […]