Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/784242
C A R M E L M A G A Z I N E • W I N T E R 2 0 1 7 167 Torrance, California, the son of a Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer Studios gaffer, or lighting tech- nician, which no doubt fueled his early fascina- tion with film. He took photography courses at John C. Fremont High School in Los Angeles, a school, incidentally, that counts six Life Magazine photographers among its alumni. After a stint in the Navy, he landed a job at Time Magazine's Washington, D.C. bureau. He earned a reputa- tion for being quick on his feet when he chanced upon the 1950 attempt to assassinate President Harry S. Truman, capturing dramatic photos of the aftermath. Assignments from the publications men- tioned earlier followed, along with other work. In addition to a knack for being in the right place at the right time, Zimmerman was a consum- mate tinkerer, always pushing his equipment— and himself—to greater levels of innovation in photography. A remarkable fact to keep in mind while perusing the photos in his book is the era in which they were produced. Many are from the early 1950s, a time in this country in which Jim Crow was very much still alive and only the barest of reforms had been made in any form of racial equality and harmony. Zimmerman moved to Atlanta, Georgia, in 1952, and through assign- ments from Ebony and other publications, pho- tographed African American life in the South and Midwest. For instance, he gained trusted access to the home and family of the sharecropper Matt Portrait of sharecropper Matt Ingram, convicted of "rape by leer" for staring at a white woman, 1953. Photo: © John G. Zimmerman Archive