Page 49 – LIFE

LIFE’s Greatest Concert Photos

April 6, 2021March 26, 2021 by Bill Syken

The photos in this collection of LIFE’s greatest concert photo covers a wide variety of performances. We have Leonard Bernstein at Lincoln Center and Minnie Pearl at the Grand Ole Opry. We have the Beatles making their U.S. debut and Marian Anderson at Carnegie Hall. We have The Doors rocking out at the Fillmore and Jack Benny cracking up the troops in Korea.

And that’s just for starters.

But look through these photos as a whole and you’ll get a sense of what makes a great concert photo. Sometimes it’s the expression of the performer, as evidenced by the photos of Frank Sinatra and Tina Turner. But often it’s the audience that makes the shot—whether it’s individual expression of glee, or the sheer multitude of human beings who have packed themselves into seats in the hopes of seeing something special. In photos as in life, the ‘hot crowd” can make all the difference.

The idea of an audience being central to the performance is amusingly winked at in one photograph in this collection, from an avant-garde concert in which the audiences watched 100 metronomes wind down to nothing. The spectators were the only living part of the show.

But the audience members are the true star of the most famous concert photos in the LIFE archives.

The Woodstock festival featured some all-time great performers—The Grateful Dead, The Who, Sly and the Family Stone, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix and more. But what made the concert an essential moment of the 1960s was the 400,000-plus people who swarmed the concert site in upstate New York. The images of those who gathered are what truly defined the moment.

Concerts like Woodstock are rare—”once in a generation” would be underselling it. In most shows, the performers are essential. But the audience can make the moment, or the photo.

Look at the picture of the Rudy Vallee nightclub show from 1949, in which the most prominent figure is not the singer but a woman in the foreground. She’s all dressed up and wearing a fancy hat, and a look of sheer delight. Of course it’s not Woodstock. But she’s the one who’s telling you: there’s something happening here.

Ray Charles performed at Carnegie Hall, 1966.

Bill Ray/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Ray Charles at Carnegie Hall, New York City, 1966.

Bill Ray; Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Harry Belafonte performed at the Coconut Grove nightclub, 1957.

Ralph Crane The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Two days after their U.S. TV debut on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” the Beatles played for 8,000 fans at their first American concert, at the Coliseum in Washington, D.C., on February 11, 1964. Ticket price: $3.

Stan Wayman The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Entertainer Jack Benny performed bits for troops stationed in Korea, 1951.

Michael Rougier/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Errol Flynn entertained troops in Korea with Jack Benny, 1951.

Michael Rougier/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The Doors performed at the Fillmore East, 1968.

Photo by Yale Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Minnie Pearl at the Grand Ole Opry, 1956.

Yale Joel/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

George Harrison and Bob Dylan at the Concert for Bangladesh in New York, 1971.

Bill Ray/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Tina Turner and band, 1970.

Gjon Mili The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Tina Turner, 1970.

Gjon Mili The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Jimmie Rodgers, 1958.

Paul Schutzer/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Duke Ellington, New York, 1943.

Gjon Mili The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Singer Margaret Truman performing with a big band at the Hollywood Bowl, 1947.

Allan Grant/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Louis Armstrong at the Monterey Jazz Festival, 1958.

N.R. Farbman/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Louis Armstrong and Tyree Glenn performing “Hello Dolly” at the Steel Pier, 1965.

Leon Gard/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Elvis Presley in Florida, 1956.

Robert W. Kelley The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Frank Sinatra at the Eden Roc, Miami, 1965.

John Dominis/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Frank Sinatra, 1965.

John Dominis/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Dean Martin (right) joined Judy Garland on stage, 1958.

Allan Grant/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis at the Copacabana, 1949.

Ralph Morse/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Singer Rudy Vallee performing at a nightclub, 1949.

Cornell Capa/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Leonard Bernstein at the podium for the first performance ever at Lincoln Center’s Philharmonic Hall in New York, 1962.

Ralph Morse/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Singer Marian Anderson, Carnegie Hall, New York, 1947.

Gjon Mili/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Sidney Bechet played his saxophone in a small basement club in Paris, 1952.

N.R. Farbman/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

One hundred metronomes performed Liget’s ‘Poeme Symphonique’ at the Buffalo Arts Festival, Albright-Knox Gallery, 1965.

Ralph Crane/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Overcome by the driving rhythm, a flutist abandoned herself to dance during an impromptu amateur performance in the woods at Woodstock, 1969.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Woodstock, August 1969.

Bill Eppridge/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Woodstock, August 1969.

John Dominis/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A Father-Son Moment on the Set of ‘The Ten Commandments’

March 26, 2021March 26, 2021 by Bill Syken

Here’s a fun piece of movie trivia: in the 1956 biblical epic The Ten Commandments, the role of baby Moses was played by Fraser Heston, the son of Charlton Heston, who starred as the adult Moses.

As Fraser tells it, director Cecil B. DeMille cast him before he was actually born.

“[DeMille] heard my mom was pregnant and said, ‘Well, if it’s a baby boy, he can play the part of Moses,’” Fraser told the The New York Post in 2020. “When I was born, the first telegram she got said, ‘Congratulations, he’s got the part. Love, C.B.’”

Baby Moses appears early in the film, when his mother sends him down the Nile in a basket, hoping to save him from an order by the Pharaoh to kill Hebrew newborns.

Fraser was three months old during the filming. He says that his introduction to the movie business was not without its perils.

“Obviously, my memory is a little sketchy,” he told the Post. “But I do remember my dad telling me that when they put me in the basket on the backlot of Paramount — the tank set is still there — the basket began to leak. The basket began to sink, and dad went to lift me out — and I was floating in four inches of water, perfectly happy. And the social worker who is by mandate on the set for all children grabbed me and said, “No, Mr. Heston, I’m the only one who can attend to this child during the filming.” He looked at her and said, with the voice he used on the pharaoh [Yul Brynner, in the film], “Give me that child!” And not surprisingly, she did. (laughs) When you get the voice of Moses — I used to call it the dark, gray voice — all he had to do was use that on us kids and we’d do anything he said.”

As an adult Fraser Heston worked in the movie business as a producer, director and writer. But his most lasting contribution to cinema remains, inevitably, his role in a film that has become an enduring tradition and whose airing on television is a sure sign of the holiday season.

“It’s the quintessential epic,” Fraser Heston said in a 2020 interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, promoting a Blu-ray reissue of the film. “When you think spectacle, you think C.B. DeMille. When you think epic, you think The Ten Commandments. It’s a great story, isn’t it?”

Charlton Heston with his son Fraser, playing the role of baby Moses, on the set of The Ten Commandments, 1955.

George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Director Cecil B. DeMille with Fraser Heston on the set of The Ten Commandments, 1955.

George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Charlton Heston with his son Fraser, playing the role of baby Moses, on the set of The Ten Commandments, 1955.

George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The filming of “The Ten Commandments,” 1955.

George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

When Movie Popcorn Was the Hot New Thing

March 19, 2021March 19, 2021 by Bill Syken

Some traditions may seem to have been around forever, but they had to be new at some point. So it was with movie popcorn.

In its July 25,1949 issue, LIFE ran a story headlined Popcorn Bonanza. The story declared, “The single greatest attraction at any U.S. movie theater last week was not Clark Gable, Jane Russell or even Danny Kaye. It was popcorn.” The story included several pages of photos that proved their buttery point.

In the earliest days of cinema, movie theaters owners shied away from selling popcorn, hoping that movie theaters would be as tony as their stage show forebears. But as the Great Depression hit and the movie business got tougher, selling snacks became a means of survival, with popcorn proving to be an inexpensive and popular treat. The theaters that survived the tough economic times were the ones who had room to install popcorn machines.

Popcorn’s place as the king of movie snacks was cemented during World War II, when sugar became scarce and salty snacks took over the counter.

The 1949 LIFE story drove home just how important popcorn was to the movie business, saying “Fans are eating movie exhibitors out of the red.” LIFE’s photographers paid due respect to all the concessions that movie theaters had to offer. But the story made clear that popcorn and movies were the winning combo. Part of the story was shot in Fresno, California, during a screening of Canadian Pacific, a Western featuring Randolph Scott, one of the stalwart stars of the genre. No one in the LIFE story used the modern coinage “popcorn movie,” but one theater owner gave voice to the idea by saying that he had started choosing movies based on which ones would draw the most popcorn eaters. “By this new ratings, Abbott and Costello are the champs,” LIFE said. “Their comedies sell more popcorn than anybody.”

You can practically hear The Age of Ultron taking shape.

Sonny Frost and his friends in Fresno shoved popcorn into their mouths while keeping their eyes on the screen during the movie “Canadian Pacific”.

Photo by J.R. Eyerman/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

This movie fan readied to watch a Western at a Fresno, Calif. movie theater, 1949.

J.R. Eyerman/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Sonny Frost didn’t wait to get to his seat to start eating his popcorn in Fresno, Calif., 1949.

J.R. Eyerman/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Movie goers hit the snack counter at a Dallas theater, 1949.

Peter Stackpole/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Fun at the movie snack bar in Fresno, California, 1949.

J.R. Eyerman/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The snack bar at a Dallas theater, 1949.

Peter Stackpole/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The snack bar at a Dallas movie theater, 1949.

Peter Stackpole/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

A movie theater in Fresno, Calif., 1949.

J.R. Eyerman/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The movie popcorn phenomenon, 1949.

Francis Miller/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

An attendant added salt to the movie popcorn, 1949.

J.R. Eyerman/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Movie popcorn as it became the standard theater snack, 1949.

Francis Miller/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Patrons enjoyed the western movie “Canadian Pacific” in Fresno, Calif., 1949.

J.R. Eyerman/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The snack surge left this custodian with plenty to clean after a Saturday show in Muncie, Ind., 1949.

Francis Miller/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Walter St. Clair, a popcorn producer who supplied many theaters, ate his own salty treats from five gallon can while reading in his Indianapolis home, 1949.

Francis Miller/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Springtime in Brooklyn, 1949

March 22, 2021March 19, 2021 by Bill Syken

Here’s a few things to know about Ralph Morse, the man who took these sweet photos of springtime in Brooklyn in 1949.

Morse made his name as a combat photographer during World War II. He had seen enough action that, when interviewed by fellow LIFE photographer John Loengard for the book LIFE Photographers: What They Saw, he was able to recount, from experience, such details as how the steel of a Navy boat can heat up when it is taking fire from all the explosions. Morse was at the battles of Normandy and Verdun, and also at Guadalcanal, where he took a famously horrific photo of a skull on a tank. Morse told Loengard, “It’s a great picture to show people who want to go to war what war is really like.”

Morse’s experience is something to keep in mind when viewing the photos that this native New Yorker took of springtime in Brooklyn in 1949. This isn’t the sort of assignment that made for war stories. But his background informs the way he cherishes the details of a sunny April day: a boy propelling a toy car with his feet, a girl enjoying a refreshing drink from atop her tricycle, kids piling into an ice cream truck.

Morse’s photos here also show appreciation for the more sedate and adult enjoyments of early spring—the sowing of seeds in the garden, the start of seasonal cleaning, a chance for a bask on the rooftop

Winter can be hard on its own. Morse had worse than winter, and knew how much these springtime moments were worth.

Springtime in Brooklyn, April 1949.

Photo by Ralph Morse/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Spring Comes To Brooklyn, April 1949.

Photo by Ralph Morse/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Spring comes to Brooklyn, April 1949.

Photo by Ralph Morse/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Spring In Brooklyn, April 1949.

Photo by Ralph Morse/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Spring Comes To Brooklyn, April 1949.

Photo by Ralph Morse/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Teenage girls walking down sidewalk in Brooklyn, Spring 1949.

Photo by Ralph Morse/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Woman picking flower pots, Brooklyn, April 1949.

Photo by Ralph Morse/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Spring Comes To Brooklyn, April 1949.

Photo by Ralph Morse/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Brooklyn, April 1949.

Photo by Ralph Morse/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Spring Comes To Brooklyn, April 1949.

Photo by Ralph Morse/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Spring In Brooklyn, April 1949.

Photo by Ralph Morse/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Spring Comes To Brooklyn, April 1949.

Photo by Ralph Morse/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Window cleaning, Brooklyn, April 1949.

Photo by Ralph Morse/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Spring Comes To Brooklyn, April 1949.

Photo by Ralph Morse/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Spring Training in Havana: Brooklyn Dodgers, 1942

March 18, 2021March 18, 2021 by Bill Syken

For decades baseball teams have held their spring training camps in either Florida or Arizona, but it used to be that teams would venture to all sorts of warm-weather locales, from the Carolinas to Texas. Some even took their act abroad, as the Brooklyn Dodgers did in 1942, when they set up camp in Havana.

They were not the first team to prepare for the upcoming season in Cuba—the New York Giants did so first in 1937. So LIFE’s story in its March 23, 1942 issue, “They Practice and Play Hard at Spring Training in Havana” was less about the location and more of a convention preview of what their editors saw as an up-and-coming team.

But the photos of the Dodgers’ Cuban venture let you know right away that you are in the tropics. Many players and coaches go through the practice shirtless. At night players slept under mosquito nets.

The main characters in these photos are the Brooklyn manager, Leo Durocher, and two of the team’s stars, Pee Wee Reese and Pete Reiser. Durocher and Reese, both Hall of Famers, are familiar to most baseball fans. Reiser is more obscure today, and that is a tale of hard luck. Reiser won the NL batting title in 1941 but his career career was derailed by his all-out playing style, especially when he was chasing fly balls. In the ’42 season he fractured his skull after running into an outfield wall and was said to never be quite the same. In 1947 he was knocked out by another horrific wall collision. (It’s no surprise that Brooklyn was the first team to pad its outfield walls). In later years Durocher swore that Reiser had as much talent as Willie Mays.

After 1942, the Dodgers stayed out of Havana for several years, owing to World War II travel restrictions, but they would return one more time, in 1947, with rookie Jackie Robinson. Dodgers leadership thought that Cuba, with passionate fans who had been cheering on Black players for years, was the right place to ease Robinson into his history-making season.

And that was Brooklyn’s last dance in Cuba. The next year, 1948, the Dodgers established a regular spring training home in Vero Beach, Florida that become known as Dodgertown, and the team stayed there for decades, before relocating in 2009 to hot spot of the moment, Arizona.

The Brooklyn Dodgers infield (left to right) of 1B Dolph Camilli, 2B Billy Herman, SS Pee Wee Reese and 3B Arky Vaughan posed outside Tropical Stadium in Havana during spring training, 1942.

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Dodgers manager Leo Durocher, spring training, Havana, 1942.

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Brooklyn Dodgers’ first baseman Dolph Camilli, spring training, Havana, 1942.

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Brooklyn Dodgers’ Joe Medwick took batting practice during spring training in Havana, 1942.

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Brooklyn Dodgers’ general manager Larry MacPhail hailed catcher Mickey Owens as the winner of a 1.5 mile run during spring training in Havana, 1942.

.William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Brooklyn Dodgers Pete Reiser and Pee Wee Reese (foreground) practiced sliding for coach Charley Dressen during spring training in Havana, 1942.

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Brooklyn Dodgers’ Charley Gelbert did a stretching exercise on a mat during spring training, Havana, 1942.

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Brooklyn Dodgers pitcher Ed Albosta stretched during spring training in Havana, 1942.

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Brooklyn Dodgers’ shortstop Pee Wee Reese playfully wrestled with much larger teammate Fred Fitzsimmons during spring training in Havana, 1942.

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Brooklyn Dodgers players during spring training in Havana, Cuba, in 1942.

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

A Brooklyn Dodgers player signed a ball for a local child during their spring training in Havana, Cuba, 1942.

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Brooklyn Dodgers in Havana, 1942.

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

The Brooklyn Dodgers during their spring training in Havana in 1942.

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Pee Wee Reese and Pete Reiser enjoying a night out during spring training in Havana, 1942.

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Pee Wee Reese and Pete Reiser carried their shoes as they walked to their Havana hotel room, 1942.

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Pee Wee Reese and Pete Reiser slept under mosquito nets in Havana during spring training, 1942.

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

General manager Larry MacPhail (left) and manager Leo Durocher (center) watched their players during spring training in Havana, 1942.

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Dodgers’ spring training in Havana, 1942.

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Brooklyn Dodgers during spring training in Havana, Cuba, 1942.

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Joe Medwick of the Brooklyn Dodgers in Havana, Spring Training, 1942.

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Brooklyn Dodgers in Havana, spring training, 1942.

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Dodgers pitcher Kirby Higbe, spring training, Havana, 1942.

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Players sitting on the stairs during the spring training, Havana, Cuba, 1942.

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Brooklyn Dodgers players relaxed by their playing field during spring training in Havana, 1942.

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Brooklyn Dodgers during their spring training in Havana, Cuba in 1942.

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Brooklyn Dodgers players posed during their spring training in Havana, Cuba, 1942

William Vandivert/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

John Olson: Chronicler of the ’60s, Innovator For the Blind

February 22, 2021February 22, 2021 by Bill Syken

John Olson arrived at LIFE late in the original run of LIFE magazine, and when he came on board at the age of 21, he was the youngest staff photographer in the magazine’s history. The pictures he shot for LIFE from 1968 to 1972 offer a kaleidoscope view of a turbulent period. He photographed soldiers in Vietnam, and hippies in a commune. He was with Janice Armstrong while she waited for husband Neil to return from the moon, and with feminists on the march for justice. He photographed the presidency of Richard Nixon, and the rock stars who provided the soundtrack for an age of upheaval.

He says that he appreciates it all now much more than he did then. “At the moment they all seem like just another day at work,” Olson says. “It’s absolutely amazing by chance to have been in all of those places.”

Now Olson occupies himself with a project tinged with 1960s idealism—a mission to open up the world of photography to the blind. His company, 3DPhotoworks, creates three-dimensional versions of artworks and photographs that blind people can appreciate through touch and also through sound clips that activate when fingers pass over them.

The story of Olson’s journey into photography is a remarkable one. He grew up in Wayzata, Minnesota, outside of Minneapolis. His father was a seed corn salesman, and his mother died before he knew her. His family subscribed to LIFE, and from the age of 12 he knew that he wanted to shoot for the magazine. Among the images that fascinated him were the photographs coming out of Vietnam from Larry Burrows.

In 1967, Olson was drafted and sent to Vietnam—he actually asked to get transferred out of a longterm stateside training project and into a combat zone. Once in Vietnam he able to join Stars & Stripes as a photographer. He had been scheduled to leave for Hawaii for R&R on January 30, 1968, the day that North Vietnam launched its war-changing Tet Offensive, so Olson shot photos while his trip was delayed. Three days later he was able to leave for Hawaii and, in violation of protocol, he kept going and soon he was in New York, showing his photos at the Time-Life Building, and eventually meeting LIFE photo director Richard Pollard.

Olson then returned to Vietnam and Stars and Stripes, where he shot the notoriously violent Battle of Hue. Despite the terror he was witnessing, he stayed with the battle until he had shot all 19 rolls of his film. His images of Hue were eventually published in LIFE, and he won the Robert Capa Award, given to a photographer whose reporting demonstrates exceptional courage. Before long, Olson had a contract with LIFE, and then a staff job.

Olson returned to Vietnam for LIFE for four months toward the end of 1968, until he asked to come home, thinking if he stayed, “I’m going to get killed.” Once back in the U.S. his assignments included a stint in the Washington bureau, photographing the early days of the Nixon presidency. As the youngest photographer on staff, he was also sent out to document the ’60s counterculture, memorably embedding in a commune and documenting their lifestyle.

Among the stories he shot was one he threatened to quit over unless he was allowed to do, so important did be believe it to be—a story that following a soldier from Vietnam to his return home to the United States, and the difficulty of making that transition. His story “A Veteran Comes Home—To Limbo” ran in LIFE’s April 16, 1971 issue.

After LIFE shuttered in 1972, Olson turned to more lucrative commercial and corporate photography and also directed television ads. But, he says, “The pinnacle of my career in work quality was with LIFE Magazine.”

His most absorbing project today is one that he sees as fulfilling a vital mission, and which connects directly to his love of photography. He began to think of the particular struggles of the blind, and the great challenge of going through life without being able to absorb information visually. He did this, he says, without ever having known anyone who was blind.

He started a company which renders photos in three dimensions and also include sensors that respond to touch with audio clips, so that blind people can run their hands over the photos and absorbing its information. So far his company has done 19 museum installations, including at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum, and the Museum of the American Revolution in Philadelphia.

The project took a great leap forward in January 2021 when Olson’s company, Tactile Images, announced a partnership with Getty Images and The National Federation of the Blind. Getty is granting access to its comprehensive and unparalleled collection of photographic images, which runs from Matthew Brady’s Civil War images on forward, while the National Federation of the Blind is putting up $500,000 to help make these three-dimensional images available to the public through dislpays and installations.

“When you ask blind people what they want to see, they say `everything,'” Olson says. “There’s no better partners for us than Getty, who has everything, and a community that wants to see everything.”

Presented here are a selection of Olson’s photographs for LIFE, and of the works for the blind that his company now creates.

While working for Stars and Stripes during the Vietnam war, John Olson took this photo of wounded soldiers atop a tank.

Olson’s company transformed his original photo into a version that imparts its information to the blind through touch and sound.

Courtesy of Tactile Images

Olson says that when blind people encounter this three-dimensional rendering of Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, they often comment that “her smile is not what was described to me.”

Courtesy of Tactile Images

Tactile Images embedded this photo with 27 audio tracks that both describe what is happening and relate the story of Washington crossing the Delaware.

Courtesy of Tactile Images

This tactile version of 3 Musicians, a collage by artist Romare Bearden, was commissioned by the Virginia Museum of Fine Art.

Courtesy of Tactile Images

Women marched down Fifth Avenue in New York City as a part of the Women’s Equality March on August 26, 1970. The march, organized by the National Organization for Women, commemorated the 50th anniversary of the passing of the Nineteenth Amendment, which granted American women full suffrage.

John Olson/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Janet Armstrong, wife of astronaut Neil, watched from her home in Texsa as her husband’s trip to the moon and back made a successful splashdown, 1969.

Photo by John Olson/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

A tent-dwelling family at an Oregon read bedtime stories, 1969.

Photo by John Olson/The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A mother washed her child’s hair in a stream near their commune.

John Olson/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

President Richard Nixon readied to throw out the first pitch of the 1969 baseball season as manager Ted Williams of the Washington Senators, Major League Baseball Commissioner Bowie Kuhn and manager Ralph Houk of the New York Yankees looked on at RFK Stadium in Washington, D.C.,April 7, 1969.

John Olson The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Denis Hayes, coordinator of the first Earth Day, 1970.

John Olson The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Barbara Reid, one of the organizers of the first Earth Day celebration, 1970.

John Olson The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sgt. Mike Ball on patrol near the end of his tour in Vietnam, 1970.

John Olson/ The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Mike Ball, struggling to find work after his return home from Vietnam, made his twentieth attempt in ten days at finding employment.

John Olson The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Joe Cocker with his mother, 1970, from a series John Olson shot on rock stars and their parents.

John Olson/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

The Jackson Five and their parents in 1970: (clockwise L-R): Jackie, parents Joe and Katherine, Marlon, Tito, Jermaine and Michael in their backyard.

John Olson /The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Frank Zappa in his Los Angeles home with his dad, Francis, his mom, Rosemarie, and his cat in 1970.

John Olson/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

“They had a parrot in a cage,” Olson remembers of the shoot at Clapton’s grandmother’s home. “Eric’s grandmother, Rose Clapp, left the room, and the parrot talked. It said F—you! I couldn’t believe it. So Mrs. Clapp comes back and I say, ‘The parrot talks.’ And she says, ‘Yes, he says gobble gobble .’ So Eric and I are talking and I ask, ‘Hey, what’s that parrot say?’ and he looks at me like I’m crazy. He says, ‘The parrot says F—you.’ There was a group then called Delaney & Bonnie, and Eric said they stayed there for a couple of weeks and taught the parrot how to say it.”

John Olson/Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Blind Faith

John Olson/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Anti-war demonstrators sat amongst pink flowers.

John Olson/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

In 1970 Yale University Law School hosted a Russ Meyer film festival; Meyer is flanked by two stars from his movies: Cynthia Myers (left) of Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, and Haji of Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!,

John Olson/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Director Russ Meyer and actresses Haji (left) and Cyhthia Myers visited Yale for the school’s Russ Meyer film festival, February 1970.

John Olson/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

Rock promoter Bill Graham chatted with Keith Moon, drummer for The Who.

John Olson/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

In Jesus Christ Superstar, Jeff Fenholt, as Jesus, was elevated with angels while Judas, played by Ben Vereen, was on a wing-shaped set platform.

John Olson/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation

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