'He always said it was more important to be a decent human being than a great photographer': Tributes pour in for legendary Vietnam War photographer and writer Tim Page who has died from liver cancer age 78
- Page was wounded four times as a war reporter covering conflicts across Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia
- The photographer embraced and documented the drug culture since the 1960s in Indochina and the US
- He was arrested with Jim Morrison when police dragged the Doors frontman from a stage in New Haven 1967
- As a photographer he shared assignments with Hunter S. Thompson, embracing his 'Gonzo' reputation
The British-born, self-taught photographer died of liver cancer with friends at his bedside in his rural home at Fernmount, friends posted on social media.
Ben Bohane, an Australian friend and fellow photojournalist, described Page as one of the world's great war photographers as well as a 'real humanist.'
'He always said that it was more important to be a decent human being than a great photographer. So his humanism, through his photojournalism, really shone through,' Bohane told ABC on Thursday.
'One of his famous lines was, "the only good war photograph is an anti-war photograph,"' Bohane added.
Page was wounded four times as a war reporter covering conflicts in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia during the 1960s and '70s.
- British photographer Tim Page is surrounded by Cambodian children at a coffee stand in Chimpou, Cambodia, on November 27, 1991. The legendary Vietnam War photographer, writer and counter-culture documenter died Wednesday at his Australian home
- Tim Page, a former war photographer, left, gives a speech during the unveiling of a memorial plaque dedicated to correspondents and journalists killed and missing in 1970-75 in the Cambodian War, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on February 6, 2013
- One of Tim Page's most famous photograph: Fires burn behind a Buddhist monk crossing a bridge on the first day of the Mini Tet offensive
- Tim Page's photo shows medics treating wounded American troops from the 173rd Airborne Division after an ambush on a rural path in War Zone
He inspired the drug-addled photojournalist played by Dennis Hopper in the Francis Coppola-directed, Oscar-winning 1979 Vietnam War movie 'Apocalypse Now.'
Page embraced and documented the drug culture since the 1960s in Indochina and the United States.
He worked as a freelance photographer from the late 1960s for music magazines including Rolling Stone and Crawdaddy, sharing assignments with some of the most significant writers of the era such as Hunter S. Thompson. Page embraced his 'Gonzo photographer' reputation.
He was arrested along with Jim Morrison when with Doors frontman was famously dragged by police from a stage in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1967.
Morrison was arrested for inciting a riot, indecency and public obscenity. Page was arrested obstructing police. Both spent the night in police cells before charges were dropped.
As well as the Indochina wars, Page also covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Solomon Islands, Israel, Bosnia and East Timor.
Page wrote a dozen books about his war experiences and music.
- Tim Page's photography captured the horror of war in south Vietnam: A blindfolded and bound Vietcong suspect squats on the ground within a barbed wire stockade at the headquarters of the 25th Division
- Another famous Tim Page snap: A soldier from the Korean White Horse Division, on an offensive north of Bong Son, kneels beside the bedraggled mother and children of a suspected Vietcong family, huddled at the edge of a field
Leaving Britain in 1962, Page traveling through Europe, the Middle East and then Asia where he began photographing a civil war in Laos.
Page went on to create iconic images of the Vietnam War while working for news organizations including the AP, UPI, Time-Life and Paris Match.
After moving to Australia in 2002 to be with his longtime Australian partner Marianne Harris, he became an adjunct professor of photojournalism at Griffith University at Brisbane in Queensland state.
Page is survived by Harris and Kit Clifford, his son from a previous relationship with Clare Clifford.
- Richard Pyle, former Associated Press bureau chief in Saigon, left, stands with with war photographer Tim Page during a Vietnam journalists reunion in Garden Grove California, May 13, 2011
- Wounded British photographer Tim Page lies on a board with his head bandaged as he is put on board an ambulance jeep in Da Nang, Vietnam, May 22, 1966, after he was hit by grenade fragments
Source:https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-photographer-Tim-Page-dies-Australia-78.html
