When you grow up, like me, with a dad who is director of Magnum, these guys become family. Because that’s what magnum is. It’s not a co-op, a photo agency, a club, but rather, a big dysfunctional family of extremely talented men and women.
Burt Glinn was the crazy funny uncle. He had an exquisite sense of humor rapped around such a charming personality. He was also the only one of the magnum founding guard that made sure no one took themselves too seriously. He was not always succesful at it, but he didn’t mind. As much as his images were serious, as much as he could not resist making jokes or witty comments on the world around him. He crunched on life as he was talking, enjoying its apple fresh juicy taste. He was a man of many, many talents, with his most important being his love of life.
Last time I met Burt was at his apartment on the Upper West side, a few years back. He was showing me how he was scanning all his images with the help of a few student-Interns with the excitement of a kid about to lunch his first self made rocket-ship. Burt was passionate about technology and understand very early on that photography was going to be digital or nothing at all. And for a man of his generation, he knew a lot.
Burt is going to be missed a lot. Not just as a the great, immensly talented photographer that he was, but as the wonderful piece of humanity that he was : a perfect soul.
Should you do anything of importance today, spend a moment to look at some of his images on the magnum site. He would have liked that.