by German photographer Thomas Hoepker, who has died aged 88, was celebrated for his humanistic approach to capturing the joys and travails of the human condition. He is remembered for his iconic 1966 portraits of Muhammad Ali taken over a two-week period in Chicago, and is known for his controversial image of five young men relaxing in Williamsburg, Brooklyn and the World Trade Center at burned across the East River on September 11. 2001.
Hoepker initially rejected the photo because he felt it was too far from Ground Zero. Years later, when reviewing his work, he realized that the passage of time within the image had created a powerful symbolism.
When the photo was finally published in 2006, Hoepker was challenged by one of its subjects because it was taken out of context and without consent. He replied: “As a photographer, I try my best not to influence the events I see. If you started a conversation or asked for permission, you would instantly change any authentic situation.”
This catch was about his method: “My photography is about staying in the background until everything fits and the picture comes together.”
This patient, quiet approach combined with his mastery of exposure, framing and composition resulted in memorable and empathetic photo reportage in a career spanning seven decades. He shot lovers in New York, people suffering from leprosy in Ethiopia, children playing with the Wall in East Berlin, and the Maya people in Guatemala.
He wanted not just to make a record, but to make a difference. He covered natural and man-made disasters, always emphasizing the dignity of his subject. In 1967 he traveled alone to Bihar in India to report on the famine, floods and smallpox epidemic there. The work was disturbing, and Hoepker often struggled with the internal charge of witnessing as a voyeur. But the camera allowed him to be disappointed, and to give voice to those he photographed, asking for a more humane and just world.
When Stern magazine published the images, the feature prompted large charitable donations, and prompted the German government to act to help. Hoepker said: “It’s one thing to take good pictures, but once in a while you have to go the extra mile and do something worthwhile. You have to at least feel like you’ve done more … than click the shutter.”
He became the first German to become a full member of Magnum Photos in 1989, two decades after turning down an invitation to join from his idol, Elliott Erwitt. He was president of the agency from 2003 to 2007. He received two World Press awards in 1967 and 1977 and was inducted into the Leica Hall of Fame in 2014. Many books of his work have been published and his photographs have been exhibited throughout the deep
The only child of Wolfgang Höpker, a journalist, and his wife Sigrid (née von Klösterlein), he was born in Munich. During the second world war, the family’s apartment in Mandlstrasse was bombed, and they were relocated to the small Bavarian town of Albertich. Due to the turmoil at the end of the war, and his father’s job, the family moved often, and Hoepker’s early split was broken.
When he was 14, his grandfather gave him a 9 x 12 glass plate camera and Hoepker was hooked. At the Kirchenpauer high school in Hamburg, he sold prints made in the family bathroom, and when he graduated he bought his first 35mm camera. His father wanted him to get a “real job” so in 1956 he began to study art history and classical archeology at LMU Munich, and then at the University of Göttingen, following his passion.
His education taught him about composition and what made a great image, which he put to good use on trips to Italy in the 1950s. It was there that he trained his neorealist street photography; it was his knack for revealing human intimacy that created the stunning 1956 image he called Love-birds in Rome. His work resulted in two awards in the young photographers category at the Photokina trade fair in Cologne.
He was impatient to get started and left university: “I didn’t study photography, I just did it. The academic world was not my life.” In 1959 Münchner Illustrierte picked him up, then he moved to Hamburg to work for Kristall magazine, a decision that would send him to the United States, and turbo-charge his career.
When Hoepker was nine years old, in May 1945, two American GIs, one black and one white, came down from two Sherman tanks that had engaged Albertans. The soldiers gave out chocolate bars and chewing gum and let the children see the most beautiful places in their homeland through a 3D Scene Master. From then on, young Hoepker was struck by the idea of USA.
He was not alone: post-war Germany believed that America was the land of milk and honey, and in 1963 the editor of Kristall wanted to know if the hype was justified. He sent Hoepker and writer Rolf Winter on a road trip from New York to the west coast and back again. Inspired by his recent acquisition of Robert Frank’s book The Americans, Hoepker packed two Leica cameras and a laundry bag full of Tri-X film and headed out.
The trip, in a rented Oldsmobile Cutlass, took three months. Hoepker returned home with images of Central America that contradicted Germany’s idealistic view of the American dream. His social documentary photography emphasized the difference in wealth, class and race: instead of the land of opportunity, he saw the land of broken dreams.
His work in the US gained him international recognition and, in 1964, he joined Stern magazine as a foreign correspondent, and Magnum Photos began distributing his work. He had his first exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Hamburg the following year.
In 1966 Stern sent him to London to photograph boxer Muhammad Ali, before he fought Brian London, the British heavyweight, at Earl’s Court. Six months later, Hoepker went to Chicago and captured The Greatest in a series of distinctive images.
In 1973, he made two documentaries on the famine in Ethiopia, which together with his photographs inspired a huge aid project in Germany. In 1974, he and his second wife, the journalist Eva Windmöller, moved to East Berlin to continue his chronicles from behind the iron curtain, work he began in 1959.
The couple moved in 1976 to New York, which would be his home for the rest of his life. From there he crossed continents, working for Stern until 1989. In July 2009, he proudly acquired US citizenship, while keeping his German head.
After being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2017, he wanted to go on one last road trip, to retrace his steps across the US.
The 2020 tour with his third wife, filmmaker Christine Kruchen, was turned into a reflective documentary, Dear Memories, which was shown in cinemas in 2022. The accompanying book, The Way It Was, added his contemporary color photographs to black. and white images from 1963.
His first two marriages ended in divorce. He is survived by Christine, whom he married in 2003, and their son, Fabian, from his first marriage, to Vilma Treue.
• Thomas Martin Renatus Hoepker, photographer, born 10 June 1936; died 10 July 2024
