Bruno Bernard
In this wiki you'll sometimes read about pre-war and post-war products, sometimes meaning "made before or after WWI", in most cases meaning "made before (pre) or after (post) World War Two". So what has the war delivered as war-winning innovation for photography? Aerial cameras? Germans and Japanese had developed superb aerial cameras for the war. But did they win? The war-winning photographic efforts achieved during hard long wars were those made by photographers. A good example: Bruno Bernard.
Bruno Bernard was born in 1911 in Berlin, Germany. He started with photography when he was 11 years old. He studied psychology at the Universities of Heidelberg, Kiel, Berlin and Paris. In 1937 he fled from the chicaneries he suffered in that pre-war Germany and continued his studies at the University of California. Beside his studies he learned a lot from theatre director Max Reinhardt and film director William Dieterle. In the 1940s he was the star photographer, getting many Hollywood stars as models for a new class of commercial photographs which became known as "Pin-Up" photos. The famous actresses became the "Pin-Up-Girls" of a great part of the war-winning soldiers. Many pin-up photos made by Bernard became iconic, and can be acknowledged as being made with high artistic quality.
Beyond his Pin-Up artistry he was a highly requested portrait photographer for the film stars. He was called "Bernard of Hollywood".
Bernard prefered moderate use of artificial light. He prefered natural light like sun at the beach, and sometimes added a flash to his light concept.
In 1987 Bruno Bernard died of cancer at the age of 75 years in Los Angeles.
Source: Fotohits magazine No. 6/2011
Literature
- Bruno Bernard, "Pin-Ups: A Step Beyond"
Links
- Bernard of Hollywood site by Susan Bernard
