William James Warren Photojournalism Photoillustration 5342 Don Ricardo Drive Carlsbad, California 92010 760.213.9986 [email protected] November, 2008 R E S U M E 1942 Born in Los Angeles, the only child of an aircraft engineer, inventor & fine cabinetmaker. Mother was an office manager, inveterate reader & correspondent with a love of humor & classical music. My career as a photojournalist began as a child, before TV, visualizing the world at large through the pages of Life Magazine and National Geographic. Robert Capa, et al, made heroic role models, with the ability to influence events through the power of their imagery. The empathy, drama, passion of the masters, (W. Eugene Smith foremost), I absorbed by osmosis. This was about the extent of my education in photography. 1960 My senior year in High School, a fellow nerd cohort was given a Leica by his folks; an instant ticket to social status and identity as an Official Photographer to the Year Book! I was envious. With a camera around my neck, I imagined, I would have a raison d'être; an identity, a means of expression, and means of looking cool to females. I left some photography magazines around the house, in spoiled reliance on the gift giving patterns of my parents. In the fullness of time (next Christmas), I became the proud owner of a 35mm 'Petri' range finder camera! The Leica would follow, after I had demonstrated that my interest was other than mercurial as I vacillated between careers in Art and Rocket Science. I set about learning how it worked in my preferred fashion, by experimentation. 1962 Santa Monica College, Journalism & Drawing, Coed Studies. 1963 Enlisted: U.S. Army, Special Forces, 101st Airborne Division, Paratrooper, Expert Marksman, Clandestine Radio Operator, Clerk/Typist, Reporter and Photographer. 1964 At less than a roll of film per subject, Sports, Architecture, Industry, Family Portraiture, Military Training and Women, yielded a modest portfolio of scratched, blurred, flat, pedestrian but serviceable snapshots. Despite the shortcomings, this portfolio came in handy when word reached me of an opening for a photographer/writer in the Public Information Office of the 101st Airborne Division, then based in Kentucky, preparing for the Vietnam War, even as none yet knew it. When the officer in charge learned that I owned both a camera and a dictionary, (another of my mother’s gifts) the job was mine. I ran down to the PX (Post Exchange) Library and loaded up on photo magazines, (the technical component to my education). These guided - 1 - me through basic darkroom voodoo in another PX facility, the only darkroom on the post. I was soon producing usable images with the minimum of scratches. I was able to stay one step ahead of my employer's expectations and hang onto the job, shooting & reporting on 'The Best Mess of the Month' Grip & Grin Presentations, the Officer's Wives' Club Monthly Receptions, (Women without first names, only 'Mrs. Joe W. Blow'), Guest Speakers on 'The Importance of Basic Black', etc.). Also shot the more mundane military activities of paratroop training, 'jumping from perfectly good airplanes', VIP Visits from Taiwanese military tourists, fondling our tactical nuclear toys. 1965 July 29, I landed in Vietnam with the first major buildup of US troops. I spent the next seven months carrying both camera and rifle, earning the CIB (Combat Infantryman's Badge) for being shot at continuously for a month, wearing the same socks for a month, or some such. My original range-finder camera was stolen en-route from Oakland, so I went for a short period making do with a 'dinky-dow' (Mickey Mouse) little half-frame 'Dial' 35mm point & shoot, before buying my first (of what would be nearly two dozen) Nikon F cameras. Where I had operated as a one-man band stateside, writing & photographing self- assigned; in Vietnam I became one of a half dozen soldiers seeking out, reporting & photographing 'Good News' stories, about Winning the Hearts & Minds of the Viets, Capturing & Destroyed Rice & Villages, Body Counts, whatever would help prove that we were winning the war. We were the spear point of the U.S. Army PR Machine. In visiting Saigon I dropped in on Dirck Halstead, then Bureau Chief for UPI (United Press International). He was encouraging, based on a scant portfolio of contact sheets, made me a house-guest on several occasions, introduced me to paella and geckos on the ceiling, welcome relief from romping through the swamp. 1966 February. Offered a stringer relationship if I cared to stay in Vietnam after my military tour ended. Seven months in-country had convinced me of the un-win-ability, delusional insanity of the war, and that there would be plenty to photograph at home, back in 'The Real World.’ Dirck provided introductions to the UPI staff in Los Angeles, who were welcoming and bought my first (paid) press images, ($15.00! Don't spend it all in one place!). After some months Glen Wagner, then Bureau Chief, in appraisal of the growing portfolio, stated, approximately: "I see in your work the makings of a great photographer, one capable of becoming anything he sets his mind on." Heady stuff, for someone who still felt as if he were 'faking it'; and influential in the decision not to return to college, which I didn't care for anyway. I didn't have time, between assignments, anyway. The Los Angeles Free Press (LAFP), (the Freep), was in need of pictures of the Anti-War, Civil Rights & Counter Cultural Movements and I needed Press Credentials (#003), along with a regular supply of $15.00 sales. - 2 - 1967 As more work appeared in the LAFP I became associated with events on the West Coast and began to receive calls from national and international publications with requests for coverage. First sales were made to Newsweek, Time, Life, Look, Stern; Paris Match, Psychology Today, UPI, AP, L.A. Times/West Magazine, et al. (A more complete Client List follows.) Other shooters began approaching me at assignments, with complements and introductions. One Life guy, (Bernard Boston?) said: "All day, I'd look around and decide where I wanted to be, and there you were." Gene Daniels with Black Star, was the first to refer me to Howard Chapnick, who was willing to have me, and represented me a couple years later. 1968 Someone else sent me to see Dick DeNeut at Globe Photos' Los Angeles office and they were enthusiastically welcoming. I signed a contract with Globe which remained in force through about 1969. They began actively selling my talents, placing work with publications, advancing funds, (especially helpful if you are hand-loading 35mm rolls of film from 100' rolls and sleeping on the floor). - In January I provided a portfolio of 26 images for Pacifica KPFK in collaboration with the Beat poet William J. Margolis. - In April, following Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination, I undertook a three month self-assignment and traveled with the Poor People's Campaign, from Memphis and Atlanta to Mississippi and Washington, D.C., the tail end of the Civil Rights Movement. - July, Benedict J. Fernandez, one photographer who had befriended me in Memphis, gave me my first show, at the Brooklyn Children's Museum; printed in his basement, sleeping on his couch. - Rangefinder Magazine published a two page layout of the same material and said: "Warren, although only 26 years of age and in photography on a full-time basis only two years, has shown a phenomenal rate of growth, and if he continues at the same pace, he undoubtedly will become one of the country's leading photojournalists. "He has a particular talent for getting into impossible areas by talking his way in, but in addition, he produces sparkling, dynamic results." I'm afraid I still owe the nice publisher a lunch. 1969 Provided 21 photos of police (the only art) to a book titled: Law Enforcement: The Matter of Redress, published by the ACLU. - Shot a cover story for Newsweek on the subject of Abortion. The New York legislature was deliberating the issue at the time, and ordered up a copy for each member. I understand that my essay was instrumental in the decision to legalize abortion on demand. (This was the apogee of my faith in the power of the camera as weapon). - I had a strong interest in Frederick Weismann style documentary film and succeeded in selling a half-hour vérité film entitled 'The Case For Legal Abortion,' to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation program Weekend. The film stirred a hornet's nest of national - 3 - debate and a storm of critical mail, to the glee of my Executive Producer, Dick Nielsen, who judged the success of a film by the volume of negative mail. "If you piss them off enough to write, then you know you have made them think." 1970 The success of the Abortion project led directly to a second half-hour film: 'Thank You Jesus', about Christian Pentecostal cults then harvesting troubled, stoned youths from the streets of Hollywood. This too attracted a large volume of mail. The film foretold the events of Jonestown, Waco & Rancho Santa Fe (the Heavenly Gators). 1971 A third film, 'God Bless Mickey Mouse', was about the World's First Walk-in/Drive- in Church and the Rev. Robert Schuler’s Good News Capitalist Theology. A contract dispute ended my relationship with CBC and brought my return to Los Angeles and still photography. - Began shooting for institutional clients; Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra, Constitutional Rights Foundation, Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center, Martin Luther King/Drew Medical Center, etc.