Murray Becker: A Photographer's Photographer
Born in Brooklyn in 1909, Murray L. Becker was introduced to news photography while working at the New York American as an office boy. One of his jobs was to lug heavy photo equipment for a staff photographer. Observing the photographer at work, Becker decided on his career and worked his way into the ranks of the news photographers. He joined AP in 1929, just a year after General Manage Kent Cooper hired AP’s first photographers. In 43 years with the AP, 32 years of those as chief photographer, Becker supervised coverage of national political conventions, presidential inaugurations, sports events, and was part of the team that developed AP’s space coverage in the early 1960s.
Becker was an innovator, who pioneered the development of overhead and sequence cameras for sports and news coverage. Although he was always looking for ways to improve the equipment, Becker never lost sight of the human element in photography. In 1946 he wrote: “It is no secret that the big secret of a good news photographer – above and beyond basic technical knowledge and the well known speed, tact, diplomacy and determination he must employ – is wrapped up in a single phrase – good timing.”
Becker was a skilled photographer who continued to shoot throughout his years at AP. He mentored many AP photographers and taught photography at the University of North Carolina. In 1970 Becker received the Joseph A. Sprague Award from the National Press Photographers Association. He was cited for “setting the highest standards in equipment, techniques and photographic coverage; for serving not only as a manager but as a lecturer, teacher and advisor to photographers around the world.”
After retiring from the AP in 1972, Becker continued to teach in Florida. He died on March 18, 1986.
New York Governor and President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt is given tickets to the Press Photographers' Ball, Jan. 18, 1933, by photographers, left to right: Murray Becker of the Associated Press; Al Amy of the New York Evening Post; and Bill Greene of the New York World-Telegram (AP Photo)
More than 50,000 people packed the Polo Grounds in New York, April 23, 1935, to see Babe Ruth make his debut in a National League game in his old home town. Here is manager Bill Terry of the Giants, left, as he and the Babe talked things over before the game. (AP Photo/Muray Becker)
Clenched fists upraised as these women march in the columns of Communists to celebrate the International Workers’ holiday, May 1, 1935 in New York City. (AP Photo/Murray Becker)
New York City’s mounted police form a solid line outside Madison Square Garden on Feb. 20, 1939, to hold in check a crowd which packed the streets around the Garden where the German American Bund was holding a rally. To prevent any clash between bundsmen and counter-demonstraters, police surrounded the area with a force of 1,500. (AP Photo/Murray Becker)
On May 6, 1937, Becker was in Lakehurst, NJ to cover the landing of the Hindenburg set to arrive from Germany that evening. The press presence was small as the giant airship was no longer big news, having already made 37 successful trips from Europe to North and South America. Becker was on the landing strip with the ground crew when disaster struck. As the Hindenburg erupted in flames, Becker made four pictures with a 4x5 Speed Graphic in 46 seconds, capturing the initial explosion and the Hindenburg's final fiery crash to earth, start to finish. A motorcycle messenger sped the film to Manhattan for transmission to AP newspapers.
In a 1982 interview, Becker told the Fort Lauderdale News: “I reacted by instinct, but when it was all over, I sat with my back to a hangar and cried about what I had just seen. I can still, to this day, close my eyes and see the thing go up in flames.”
The German dirigible Hindenburg crashes to earth, tail first, in flaming ruins after exploding on May 6, 1937, at the U.S. Naval Station in Lakehurst, N.J. The 1920s and 1930s were the golden age of dirigibles which crossed the Atlantic Ocean in about three days -- faster than a ship. The Hindenburg was the largest airship ever built at 804 feet long and flew up to 85 miles per hour while held aloft by hydrogen, which was highly flammable. The disaster, which killed 36 people after a 60-hour transatlantic flight from Germany, ended regular passenger service by the lighter-than-air airships. (AP Photo/Murray Becker)
The Hindenburg zeppelin hits the ground after an explosion in mid-air destroyed the hydrogen-inflated German airship over Lakehurst, N.J., on May 6, 1937. The crew was preparing to land at the U.S. Naval base station when the explosion occured. Thirty six of the 97 persons on board were killed. (AP Photo/Murray Becker)
New York Yankees' Lou Gehrig, the "Iron Horse," wipes away a tear while speaking during a sold-out tribute at Yankee Stadium July 4, 1939. Gehrig's record breaking career was cut short by neuromuscular disease. (AP Photo/Murray Becker)
Young men enlisting for service in World War II make the rounds of an induction center set up in New York's Grand Central Palace, usually a center for conventions and assorted shows, on October 7, 1942. (AP Photo/Murray Becker)
Actor John Barrymore combs his hair in the front of a mirror at his country home in Bayside, Long Island, New York, Jan. 30, 1940. He is preparing for the opening of "My Dear Children" at the Belasco Theater in New York tomorrow night. (AP Photo/Murray Becker)
To the tune of popping flash bulbs and clicking shutters, Frank Sinatra Jr., son of the well-known singer, makes his first public appearance in his mother Nancy Sinatra's arms in Margaret Hague Hospital in Jersey City, New Jersey January 11, 1944. Nancy Sinatra holds a photo of her husband, who was in California when their child was born January 10. (AP Photo/Murray Becker)
Bruno Richard Hauptmann is sentenced to die this week in the electric chair built by Carl Adams Sr., Trenton electrician who is shown in his office in Trenton, N.J., Jan. 13, 1936. Adams is proud that the chair, built in 1907, is as good as new after 116 executions. (AP Photo/Murray Becker)
Handcuffed to two other prisoners, Fritz Kuhn (third from left), German-American Bund leader walks into Sing Sing Prison in Ossining, New York, Dec. 6, 1939, to begin serving a 2 and a half to 5 years sentence for stealing Bund funds. Sheriff Mathew Larkin, right, of New York county, is escorting the prisoners. (AP Photo/Murray Becker)
A man looks over some of the equipment found by police in a raid in New York, Oct. 1, 1942 on what the police described as "a million-dollar-a-year" wire service for bookmakers. (AP Photo/Murray Becker)
At the Great Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company coffee plant, one of the company's eight coffee roasting plants and one of the largest roasting plants in the world, coffee testing is an art requiring long experience and training. J.W. Zawacki, above, has been testing coffee for A&P for 25 years. Zawacki sits at the circular table, Nov. 6, 1942. First, he smells the coffee. Then, he skims off the grounds still on top of the coffee and tastes a spoonful. Generally a taster expectorates the coffee after determining the quality – but Mr. Zawacki often drinks it. "Coffee is good," he says. (AP Photo/Murray Becker)
Miss Christina Nix of New York is freed from wreckage of the Congressional Limited at Philadelphia, Sept. 6, 1943. She was the last known person to be brought out alive. She had remained conscious for six hours, during which she was given a blood transfusion. Her legs were badly crushed. (AP Photo/Murray Becker)
George Taliaferro (20) of the New York Yankees football team, is shown in New York, Nov. 2, 1950. Taliaferro was the first African-American to be drafted by an NFL team. (AP Photo/Murray Becker)
Gil McDougald, New York Yankees second baseman, leaps high to glove throw from teammate Tony Kubek, shortstop, in the fifth inning of the first of two games at New York's Yankee Stadium, June 5, 1958. Early Wynn, Chicago White Sox starting pitcher, stands on second advancing on Nellie Fox's single to short. Umpire Ed Rommel watches the play. Yankees won first, 12-5. (AP Photo/Murray Becker)
On the cover of the Spring 1957 issue of AP World, Murray Becker is seen handing a Polaroid photo to Cle Emerson for Wirephoto transmission. Becker took the photo from the Polaroid back of his 36-inch Big Bertha camera. The 1957 presidential inauguration was the first time that AP had a Wirephoto transmitter operating on a high stand about 125 feet from the Capitol steps where President Eishenhower took the oath of office, allowing AP to put photos on the wire faster than ever. The bottom half of the page shows an overview of AP’s positions on the platform. The circled photographers are (left to right), Becker, John Rooney and Harry Harris.
Cover of the Spring 1957 issue of AP World, showing AP”s photo setup at the inauguration of President Dwight D. Eishnhower in Washington, D.C., January 20, 1957.
Associated Press photographer Murray Becker is pictured at Cape Canaveral, Fla., shortly before the start of astronaut Virgil I. Grisson's 303-mile space capsule flight to a spot in the Atlantic, July 21, 1961. (AP Photo/Pool/Life Magazine/Ralph Morse)
Text and photo editing by Francesca Pitaro.