May 29, 1926

Larry Burrows (May 29, 1926 to February 10, 1971) was a war photographer. He was born in London and, according to the World Press Photo organization:

'...started his career in Life magazine's London bureau, where he printed photographs. After the Second World War, in 1945, he became a photojournalist for Life and worked in Congo and the Middle-East before going to Vietnam. He arrived first in Vietnam in 1962. When the war broke out he decided to stay to cover the conflict. He died....when his helicopter was shot down over Laos. Also on board were fellow photojournalists Henri Huet, Kent Potter and Keisaburo Shimamoto, who died as well. Burrows was an extraordinary talented and brave war photographer, by whom others measured themselves.'

One of his colleagues would later write:

'I must mention Larry Burrows in particular. To us younger men who had not yet earned reputations, he was a sainted figure. He was a truly beautiful man, modest, graceful, a star who never behaved like one. He was generous to all, a man who gave lessons to his colleagues not just on how to take photographs but, more important, on how to behave like a human being, how to be both colleague and mentor. .....'

These are the words of Pulitzer Prize winner David Halberstam, who had worked with Larry Burrows, from the former's book Requiem: By the Photographers Who Died in Vietnam and Indochina (1997).

We have another photo Larry Burrows took---

This shot shows the genius, and luck, involved in greatness. It is a picture of T. S. Eliot, by a poster advertising one of Eliot's plays, and engaging one of his loves. The photo dates to 1958.