Giraffe in Amboseli National Park, Kenya, Africa by Pete Turner 1964
Toronto. My thanks to George Dunbar who emailed the sad news that Pete Turner died recently. His passing was noted with this insightful article in the New York Times. A New Yorker, Mr Turner was famous for his saturated colour photographs.
While his name may be unfamiliar to most readers, his photographs may well be familiar. Some of his photographs became cover shots for the LP records of the 1950s – 1980s era (give or take).
According to the NYT article, Turner began processing colour at the tender age of 14 – about 1948. In those days, the best one could achieve was a reasonable print or slide. In Canada, I processed Anscochrome and Ferraniacolour a decade later. Turner’s work was truly inspired and impressive. He was noted for his colour assignments world wide.
The NYT article begins, “When the photographer Pete Turner was on assignment in Amboseli National Park in Kenya in 1964, a lone giraffe galloped across the empty plain before him, and he captured it in all its solitude, its neck rising above the horizon.
“Mr. Turner’s resulting transparency was overexposed, but he saved it by rephotographing it and using filters to transform it into a spectacular and eerie new image.
“The giraffe now appeared to be part of a surreal painting, running across a purplish veld beneath a red sky.”
