Bio Bit: Larry Burrows

Seeing It Through to the End

 "What’s the hardest thing of all? It’s to keep feeling. Yet if you feel too much – you’d break." - Larry Burrows

            Ever leave a story unfinished? It’s just left hanging there, in a strange limbo of not knowing how it’s ever going to end. For Larry Burrows, he wasn’t willing to have this happen to his story. A British war photographer for Life magazine, he felt it his job to document the stories of the Vietnam War to the end. It was his hope to one day photograph a Vietnam at peace. Getting a job as an

Life

errand boy in the London bureau of Life at sixteen he eventually was allowed to print some photographs, which happened to be of war. They fascinated him. It became his goal to be a war photographer himself, and with the Vietnam War, he got that chance. Exposed to all the same dangers and miserable conditions soldiers are, being a war photographer wasn’t easy. Most photographers on a newspaper deadline would stay only short periods of time. Larry Burrows, however, working for a magazine, was given much more freedom to be able to take his time. Staying in the field for longer periods of time meant he could build more trusting relationships with the soldiers and to better understand everything that was going on. Life was concerned for his safety, though. Due to his poor eyesight, he would get right in the midst of the action to get his pictures. Once, he apologized to the editors saying “sorry if my captioning is not up to standard … but with all that sniper fire around, I didn’t dare wave a white notebook.” (1) Because of their concern, Life would constantly send him off to less action filled assignments, such as taking pictures of Mother Theresa, or capturing images of rare birds (2). After completing such assignments, though, Burrows would always return back to the battlefield. This fact could make one question his emotional stability, if he took too much pleasure in the violence, but as Greg Fallis writes of him “unlike some of the photographers who returned often to Vietnam, Burrows wasn’t an adrenaline junkie. He was, instead, determined to cover the war to the end, that was his assignment and he wouldn’t quit until the assignment was finished.” (2) 

 

Life

In February, 1971, Larry boarded a military helicopter, along with three other journalist photographers, heading over enemy territory. The helicopter was shot down near the border of Laos. Because of the location, no one dared to go look for the bodies, and Larry Burrows became MIA. Many years later, upon investigation, all they found of him in the deteriorating wreckage were pieces of his smashed up cameras. For Larry Burrows, the story was ended. The

Larry and the three other photographers as they board the helicopter | UTATA

assignment left uncompleted. He never got the chance to photograph a Vietnam at peace after all. Through his powerful photographs, though, he opened people’s eyes to the horrors of war. He showed soldiers together - brothers - who lived, suffered and died together. Larry Burrows changed the world through his photographs, in ways that he probably wouldn’t have even dared to hope.

 "Larry was English, a polite man, self-effacing, warm with his friends but totally cool in combat. He had deep passions, and the deepest was to make people confront the reality of the war, not look away from it. He was more concerned with people than with issues, and he had great sympathy for those who suffered …" -LIFE’s Managing Editor, Ralph Graves

Bibliography

(1.) "Vietnam War: The Story Behind Larry Burrows’ Photo, ‘Reaching Out’ | LIFE | TIME.com." LIFE. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2014. 

(2.) "Sunday Salon with Greg Fallis." Sunday Salon » Larry Burrows. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Oct. 2014.