Jimmy Hare, News Photographer: Half a Century with a Camera

By Cecil Carnes

BOOK DESCRIPTION

Jimmy Hare wrote in the foreword to this biography of himself, “Mr. Carnes [the author] has done a thorough job, I believe, and an interesting one; but then, he should have, for I turned over to him every scrap of paper I have accumulated in the 70 active years of my present 84.

“In addition to letters, clippings, newspaper and magazine articles, he has had my diaries—kept in the field and often under fire. Those journals cover the Spanish-American War, the Russo-Japanese War, the two Mexican disturbances*—and they were as lively in all conscience as most wars!—the trouble in Venezuela, the First Balkan War, the First World War and some of its aftermaths, such as the Polish war for independence from the Bolsheviks. In addition to these martial adventures—one-sided affairs in which it was always my privilege to be shot at but never to shoot!—my records cover a host of peacetime assignments wherein he has found much to amuse.

“He has managed to get me out on a limb every second page, photographing the Devil while he sawed down the tree. Well, those events actually did happen…

“I want to stress the fact here that what I did was to try to obtain pictures of action in the early days of war photography—not just static group scenes—and to make it clear that photographers today get better pictures. We had certain technical handicaps then which made it necessary to develop pictures while at the battle front, and early cameras and the first types of film were hard to work with—almost as hard to work with as the modern military censor!

“Oh! We had some censors in those days, too, but they had not attained to their present colossal proportions so a fellow could sometimes ‘put it over’ them. I noted the difference in the First World War, and later in the Polish struggle…

“This is my valedictory to the newspaper business, and I make it with the profound feeling that journalism is a glorious game… [I] saw it in what were probably its best days from the point of view of the reporter or photographer in the field—the days when a man was limited only by his personal ability, resourcefulness and intuition.”

*The Battle of Ciudad Juarez in 1911 and the occupation of Veracruz in 1914.

MY OPINION

This was fun to read. The author puts you right on the street with the action. He also provides details about the Battle of Ciudad Juarez that I don’t remember reading elsewhere.

As much as I enjoyed the book, I was surprised at the small number of photos inside, considering its subject and over 300 pages. Only six are of the conflicts in Mexico, so search out this book for the prose, not for the photographs.