Bill Kiene semi-retired
12-22-2007, 12:57 AM
Jack Fields, a renowned photographer who traveled the world for more than five decades, chronicling the lives of people from the South Pacific to Alaska to Africa, died of heart failure Thursday at his Placerville home. He was 87.
Mr. Fields' dream of seeing far-off places began as a young boy growing up in Kansas. After earning a degree in science from Kansas State College, Mr. Fields was sent to fight in New Guinea in World War II and began taking photographs for the military's Yank Magazine.
While overseas, Mr. Fields contracted tuberculosis and was recuperating at Cragnor Sanitorium in Colorado Springs, Colo., when he met Dorothy Gindling. The couple married in 1948.
The couple moved to Los Angeles, and during the next 50 years, they crossed the planet. He would take photographs and she would write stories.
"We seemed to think along the same lines," his wife said. "We enjoyed new ways to approach people."
While a student at the Art Center College of Design, Mr. Fields sold his first photos to Look magazine. After he finished at the Art Center College and his wife completed her studies in writing at the Maren Elwood School, the couple traveled to Europe on assignment.
Over the years, Mr. Fields' work would appear in Collier's Weekly, the Saturday Evening Post, National Geographic, Smithsonian, Look and Life magazines. The couple continued to head out into the world in search of interesting stories after settling in the Sierra foothills.
Among the many places he chronicled was Micronesia, which he photographed soon after the end of World War II.
In 1971, the couple approached a Japanese publisher with work they had compiled from the South Pacific. Two years later they published a book, "South Pacific."
"Instead of beaches and resorts, we talked to people," Dorothy Fields said. "People have said that it was a different South Pacific."
Mr. Fields, a mentor to many photographers in Northern California, was a founding chairman of the Bay Area chapter of the American Society of Magazine Photographers.
He taught photography for three years at San Jose State University in the late 1970s, preaching what he called a "no-nonsense" approach to photography while many other universities taught the trade more as an art.
A photograph of Mr. Fields' depiction of a laser pioneer at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center was used as a reference for a commemorative U.S. Postal Service stamp in 1999.
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Mr. Fields' dream of seeing far-off places began as a young boy growing up in Kansas. After earning a degree in science from Kansas State College, Mr. Fields was sent to fight in New Guinea in World War II and began taking photographs for the military's Yank Magazine.
While overseas, Mr. Fields contracted tuberculosis and was recuperating at Cragnor Sanitorium in Colorado Springs, Colo., when he met Dorothy Gindling. The couple married in 1948.
The couple moved to Los Angeles, and during the next 50 years, they crossed the planet. He would take photographs and she would write stories.
"We seemed to think along the same lines," his wife said. "We enjoyed new ways to approach people."
While a student at the Art Center College of Design, Mr. Fields sold his first photos to Look magazine. After he finished at the Art Center College and his wife completed her studies in writing at the Maren Elwood School, the couple traveled to Europe on assignment.
Over the years, Mr. Fields' work would appear in Collier's Weekly, the Saturday Evening Post, National Geographic, Smithsonian, Look and Life magazines. The couple continued to head out into the world in search of interesting stories after settling in the Sierra foothills.
Among the many places he chronicled was Micronesia, which he photographed soon after the end of World War II.
In 1971, the couple approached a Japanese publisher with work they had compiled from the South Pacific. Two years later they published a book, "South Pacific."
"Instead of beaches and resorts, we talked to people," Dorothy Fields said. "People have said that it was a different South Pacific."
Mr. Fields, a mentor to many photographers in Northern California, was a founding chairman of the Bay Area chapter of the American Society of Magazine Photographers.
He taught photography for three years at San Jose State University in the late 1970s, preaching what he called a "no-nonsense" approach to photography while many other universities taught the trade more as an art.
A photograph of Mr. Fields' depiction of a laser pioneer at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center was used as a reference for a commemorative U.S. Postal Service stamp in 1999.
http://media.sacbee.com/smedia/2007/12/15/21/570-7M16TEST.embedded.prod_affiliate.4.JPG