Russell
Melcher

Photographer

Russell Melcher, born in the U.S. in 1931 but living or traveling in Paris most of the time, worked as a photographer, photo agent (Magnum director) as well as a photo editor, and was at the same time an important contemporary witness in the heyday of visual world exploration. This "Golden Age of Photojournalism" was characterized both by a strong self-image of photographers as authors and storytellers, and by high-circulation magazines such as Life, Time Magazine, Paris Match, Spiegel, Stern, etc., whose readership used these reportages as a keyhole to the world.