The famed British photojournalist Ian Berry died last weekend, aged 92, following a short illness. His wife Kathie revealed on Instagram that he died peacefully, in the early hours, just as they were about to fly to the Marquesas Islands in French Polynesia.
His career reads like a highlights reel of 20th century history: Sharpeville, the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, the Vietnam War, Northern Ireland's Troubles, the fall of apartheid.
But talk to the man himself, as Digital Camera Magazine did back in 2011, and what came across was a refusal to be precious about any of it, including the equipment that made it possible.
Film to digital
At that stage, still working in his 70s, Berry described his kit bag without a hint of gearhead sentimentality. Two Leica M8.2 rangefinders, a 28-50mm lens, a Nikon D700 for SLR work and, tucked in alongside it, an old 70-300mm Nikon zoom he called "more of an amateur lens", but which kept anyway because "it delivers great results while feeling very light in my bag".
He'd started learning photography in 1952 and like many of his era, took his time to switch to digital. "I thought I'd shoot film forever," he explained. "But a few years ago I did a BBC show where they gave me a Nikon DSLR to try. I just treated it like a film camera, never checking the image on the back as I didn't know how to! I loved it and quickly bought one."
That last habit wasn't nostalgia; it was a deeply ingrained working method. "I have a good idea of what I've got, and rather than checking images all the time, I'd prefer to be moving on and getting my next shot," he said.
Trial by teacup
The best story in that interview was a small, funny one. When Henri Cartier-Bresson was deciding whether to sign him to Magnum Photos in 1962, Berry met him in a Paris bistro, laid out his prints, and drank coffee while Cartier-Bresson ordered tea.
Magnum told him afterwards that Cartier-Bresson had hated him; it turned out he only judged photographers by contact sheets, not prints. Berry went back at a later date, showed contacts and, for good measure, ordered tea for himself too.
That instinct for reading a room helped put him in the right place, at the right time as a photojournalist. In 1960, the South African magazine Drum sent him to Sharpeville, a township in Gauteng province. When trouble began on the streets, he ignored orders to leave and stayed close enough to capture police opening fire on a crowd of protesters, killing dozens.
Drum's owners refused to publish them, in case the magazine was closed down, so an agency placed them with LIFE and Paris Match instead. They were used in court to prove that police had lied, and to clear protesters of affray charges.
Berry's advice to youngsters, passed down from his Magnum colleague Elliot Erwitt, was blunt: "Always keep your copyright... when you're older you can live off your archive." Yet he himself never retired.
Asked in 2011 if he planned to, he'd laughed the question off: "What would I do? I'm still healthy, I can go off and do stories." And indeed he continued working well into his old age. A good life, well lived. He will be missed.
