Tim Page, one of the preeminent photographers of the Vietnam War known as much for his larger-than-life personality as for his intense and powerful combat photographs, died in New South Wales on Wednesday, Australia. Page, 78, died of liver cancer.
An independent and free-spirited man whose photos of Vietnam appeared in publications around the world in the 1960s, he was badly injured four times, most seriously when shrapnel ripped out a piece of his brain and killed him. sent in months of convalescence and rehabilitation. Page was one of the most vivacious figures among a body of Vietnamese photographers whose images helped shape the course of the war – and was a role model for the mad, stoned photographer played by Dennis Hopper in “Apocalypse Now”. In “The Vietnam War: An Eyewitness History,” writes Sanford Wexler, “Page was known as a photographer who went anywhere, flew into anything, closed the shutter in all conditions, and when he was beaten, resumed with bandages.”
In his later years, Page was as thoughtful as he had been flamboyant and as eloquent about the personal costs of the war as he had been about his thrills.
“I don’t think anyone who goes through something like war ever comes out of it unscathed,” he told the NYT in 2010. He has published a dozen books, including two memoirs, most notably “Requiem “, a collection of images of photographers on all sides who had been killed in the various wars of Indochina. Page was born in Britain on May 25, 1944, the son of a British sailor killed in World War II.
He was adopted and never knew his biological mother. At 17, he left England in search of adventure, leaving behind a note that read: “Dear parents, I am leaving home for Europe or perhaps the Navy and therefore the world. I don’t know how long I will go. He went far beyond Europe, to West Asia, India and Nepal, ending his journey in Laos as the Indochina War was just beginning. He found work as a stringer for United Press International and landed a job with photographs of a 1965 Laos coup attempt. He spent most of the next five years covering the Vietnam War, working largely on assignments for Time and Life, UPI and AP magazines. He also covered the unrest in East Timor and the Solomon Islands.
An independent and free-spirited man whose photos of Vietnam appeared in publications around the world in the 1960s, he was badly injured four times, most seriously when shrapnel ripped out a piece of his brain and killed him. sent in months of convalescence and rehabilitation. Page was one of the most vivacious figures among a body of Vietnamese photographers whose images helped shape the course of the war – and was a role model for the mad, stoned photographer played by Dennis Hopper in “Apocalypse Now”. In “The Vietnam War: An Eyewitness History,” writes Sanford Wexler, “Page was known as a photographer who went anywhere, flew into anything, closed the shutter in all conditions, and when he was beaten, resumed with bandages.”
In his later years, Page was as thoughtful as he had been flamboyant and as eloquent about the personal costs of the war as he had been about his thrills.
“I don’t think anyone who goes through something like war ever comes out of it unscathed,” he told the NYT in 2010. He has published a dozen books, including two memoirs, most notably “Requiem “, a collection of images of photographers on all sides who had been killed in the various wars of Indochina. Page was born in Britain on May 25, 1944, the son of a British sailor killed in World War II.
He was adopted and never knew his biological mother. At 17, he left England in search of adventure, leaving behind a note that read: “Dear parents, I am leaving home for Europe or perhaps the Navy and therefore the world. I don’t know how long I will go. He went far beyond Europe, to West Asia, India and Nepal, ending his journey in Laos as the Indochina War was just beginning. He found work as a stringer for United Press International and landed a job with photographs of a 1965 Laos coup attempt. He spent most of the next five years covering the Vietnam War, working largely on assignments for Time and Life, UPI and AP magazines. He also covered the unrest in East Timor and the Solomon Islands.
