Stanley Kubrick: Photographer

Stanley Kubrick’s set photographer ID card, June 29, 1947

William Howard Taft High School’s “Portfolio” magazine, Fall 1944

Stanley Kubrick as a photographer for “The Naked City” (Jules Dassin, 1948)

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Photography

When President Franklin D. Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, the entire nation mourned him. On that day, sixteen-year-old Stanley Kubrick photographed a newspaper vendor, distraught and slumped next to papers emblazoned with the historic headline “F.D.R. DEAD.”

Kubrick offered the snapshot to “Look” and “Life” magazines. “Look” offered him twenty-five dollars a higher fee than “Life” offered. Shortly thereafter, he became the youngest staff photographer ever hired by “Look.” Between 1945 and 1951 he took thousands of photographs, nine hundred of which were eventually published in the magazine. Seen today, these images demonstrate how Kubrick honed his eye and started to explore the themes and imagery that he would later revisit in his films.