Thomas hoepkers 9/11 photo

View from Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on Manhattan, 9/11 is a color photograph by German photographer Thomas Hoepker.

It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of beloved Magnum photographer Thomas Hoepker, aged Hoepker joined Stern magazine as a photojournalist in , the same year that Magnum began to distribute his archive. He worked as cameraman and producer of documentary films for German television in , and from collaborated with his second wife, the journalist Eva Windmoeller, first in East Germany and then in New York, where they moved to work as correspondents for Stern in From to Hoepker was director of photography for the American edition of Geo.

In the late s, Elliott Erwitt invited Hoepker to become part of Magnum as a member of the collective. It was to be around two decades later, in that Hoepker would finally leave Stern and take on the opportunity to join Magnum, where he was to become president in Hoepker made a beloved series on a sports and pop-cultural titan, Muhammad Ali.

Across two extraordinary visits to Ali in London and Chicago, Hoepker and his then-wife Eva Windmoeller followed the boxer as he prepared for a fight and trained on his home turf. He melted away when he saw children.

His photograph of five young people lounging on the Brooklyn waterfront as smoke engulfed Manhattan mesmerized viewers and stirred controversy.

They adored him, he hugged them, he did some shadow-boxing and then he took sudden naps in the backseat of his chauffeured Lincoln sedan. Throughout the time he was employed as a news photographer, he always saw himself as a journalist. It was only after becoming a member of Magnum that he began to recognize the role of the artist within that of the photographer.

Even at Magnum, everyone has to make his own decision on how far he wants to go in presenting reality through his own eyes. His reportage and features in color revealed to many the alluring landscapes and scenery of America, Japan, China and many other places around the world. He also photographed revered artists such as Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein.