Thomas Hoepker, a renowned German photographer who captured iconic images of the late 20th century, has died peacefully age 88.
Hoepker’s portrait of Muhammad Ali is one of the most recognizable images of the boxing champion. Showing him raising his fist up to the photographer’s lens.
“Ali was the ideal photo model because he did not interfere, or do any poses — he was his natural self,” Hoepker told The Guardian in 2015.
“He wouldn’t do anything twice, so I had to be very alert. You would have one chance, and then he’d suddenly change again, and get very quiet or sleepy.
“He saw me during a little break between rounds in training, and he came out of the ring towards me, sticking his fist out into my camera — right fist, left fist, right fist, and then the bell rang to take him back. This was the only shot that was really sharp and well exposed, so it became the famous picture.”
Hoepker documented the Berlin Wall in the 1960s and 70s, capturing awesome photos of children playing on the physical border between East and West. He also captured emotional families reuniting with each other outside Friedrichstrasse station, dubbed the “Palace of Tears.”
But arguably Hoepker’s most famous photo was taken on September 11, 2001, in Brooklyn. His photo of five young New Yorkers seemingly indifferent to the horror taking place on the other side of the East River sparked a great controversy.
Hoepker didn’t reveal the photo until a few years later as he believed “we didn’t need to see that, then” and feared “it would stir the wrong emotion.”
However, the German photographer told David Friend, who made the book Watching the World Change, that he found his subjects’ demeanor to be troubling.
“They were totally relaxed like any normal afternoon,” he told Friend. “It’s possible they lost people and cared, but they were not stirred by it.”
Columnist Frank Rich wrote in The New York Times that “The young people in Mr. Hoepker’s photo aren’t necessarily callous. They’re just American.”
One of the men in the photo, Walter Sipser, was prompted to get in touch with Slate and slammed both Hoepker and Rich’s Times column.
“Had Hoepker walked fifty feet over to introduce himself he would have discovered a bunch of New Yorkers in the middle of an animated discussion about what had just happened,” wrote Sipser who is on the far right of the photo.
“He instead chose to publish the photograph that allowed him to draw the conclusions he wished to draw.
“A more honest conclusion might start by acknowledging just how easily a photograph can be manipulated, especially in the advancement of one’s own biases or in the service of one’s own career.”
Hoepker responded to Sipser’s comments saying that the photo is an example of the confusing horror that took place that day.
“I think the image has touched many people exactly because it remains fuzzy and ambiguous in all its sun-drenched sharpness,” he wrote in Slate.
“On that day five years ago, sheer horror came to New York, bright and colorful like a Hitchcock movie. And the only cloud in that blue sky was the sinister first smoke signal of a new era.”
Career
Born on June 10, 1936, in Munich, Germany, Hoepker was gifted a camera by his grandfather when he was 14. His career began in the 1960s and in 1964 he joined Stern magazine as a photojournalist and Magnum began to distribute his archive photographs.
Hoepker moved to New York City in 1976 where he would spend the majority of his life afterward.
He served as the director of photography for American Geo from 1978 to 1981 and as the art director for Stern in Hamburg from 1987 to 1989.
He became a full member of Magnum in 1989 and became president of the photo agency in 2003.
“The Magnum family has lost one of its dearest members, Thomas Hoepker, today,” writes Magnum President Cristina de Middel. “A true visionary, Thomas’s contributions extended beyond his remarkable, playful, poignant photographs.”
He passed away after a long battle with Alzheimer’s on Wednesday in Santiago, Chile. He was 88. To see more of his work, head to his Magnum profile page.