Award-Winning Television Photojournalist Bob Brandon Dies In New York
Updated to include memorial service information
NEW YORK, NY (December 10, 2009) – Bob Brandon, a two-time national Emmy Award-winning television photographer who also twice won the National Press Photographers Association's Ernie Crisp Television News Photographer of the Year title, died last night in New York.
"The word legend is sometimes overused, but in Bob's case it was the real thing," retired TIME magazine photojournalist Dirck Halstead said today. "He and Darrell Barton were the best in the business."
Brandon's close friend, television photojournalist Dave Wertheimer, said Brandon – who has been seriously ill and waiting for a kidney transplant – had traveled from Denver to New York this week to visit his daughter Ellie Brandon to celebrate her 18th birthday.
Wertheimer had been assisting Brandon as he shot video on a first-person story documenting Brandon's arduous every-other-day kidney dialysis. It's a story Brandon, 63, had been working on for two years. Along with producer Marianne Leviton, Brandon had been shooting for the documentary "Connected For Life," a broadcast-length documentary about people who _ like the photographer – are on waiting lists for life-saving kidney transplants.
"He was hopeful," Wertheimer told News Photographer magazine today. "He was waiting for the transplant. It was all up in the air, back and forth. He was doing dialysis every other night. When he traveled, he'd arrange for places in advance so he could do it. When he taught at the NewsVideo Workshop in Norman he would arrange for dialysis in Oklahoma City and go there overnight, then come back the next day and teach the workshop."
In recent years Brandon has been freelancing from his base in Denver, CO, and for more than 30 years he's been one of the instructors at NPPA's popular annual NewsVideo Workshop in Norman at the University of Oklahoma.
Brandon first won the Ernie Crisp Television News Photographer of the Year title while working as a chief photographer at KPRC-TV in Houston in 1975. He won the second time as a network freelancer in 1980. While freelancing, he worked for every major television network. He was one of the pioneer photojournalists at "48 Hours" for CBS News and set the style for modern documentaries.
An NPPA member, Brandon was the author of The Complete Digital Video Guide, published by Readers Digest in 2005, and he also produced a series of video programs called “Shoot Like A Pro” to teach beginning photographers how to tell stories with video.
In 2006, Brandon received NPPA's highest honor, the Joseph A. Sprague Memorial Award, during NPPA's 60th Anniversary Photojournalism Summit in Tampa Bay, FL. Brandon had also been the winner of NPPA’s Cliff Edom Award for his ability to inspire and motivate young photographers.
About Brandon winning the Sprague, his long-time friend and fellow television photographer Darrell Barton said, "Bob has set a standard for dignity, professionalism, and courage for this profession that’s unmatched. No young photographer who has ever asked Bob for help has been turned away ... there’s no one more deserving of this prestigious award.”
Brandon was a cameraman for four decades, shooting his first images in 1966 while still in college for KGNC-TV in Amarillo, TX. In 1970 he joined KPRC-TV in Houston, winning more than 30 awards there in 9 years and leading the station through the switch from film to videotape. He left KPRC-TV in 1979 to freelance and has done so ever since.
"He was the best person you could ever meet in life," NewsVideo Workshop director and long-time friend Sharon Freed said today.
"Bob lived for the workshop every year. It was keeping him really motivated, it just kept him going. One year he was so sick, we carried him down the stairs [at the workshop] in a wheelchair. He just kept coming back." Freed said Brandon started his affiliation with the workshop more than 30 years ago, when he first won the Photographer of the Year title.
Over the years in addition to CBS News, he's shot for 60 Minutes, NBC News, Today, Dateline, ABC Evening News, Prime Time Live, and 20/20. Brandon was on the team that won two national Emmys for groundbreaking 48 Hours broadcasts, and he spearheaded the style-setting documentary “Emergency Vets” on Animal Planet TV. He was on the team that won two national Emmys for groundbreaking 48 Hours broadcasts, and he spearheaded the style-setting documentary “Emergency Vets” on Animal Planet TV.
In 2004, Brandon was critically ill and taken to a trauma hospital after friends found him on the floor of his home in August. Apparently he had been there for several days after collapsing, and was unable to reach the phone to call for help. Seriously ill, he rebounded from that incident and his health improved to the point that he went back to work editing and producing video projects and teaching yearly at the Norman workshop.
In the November 2009 issue of News Photographer magazine, Brandon wrote a feature story about Denver television station KUSA-TV winning the Station of the Year (Large Markets) title for the 11th time.
Born on July 29, 1946, Brandon survived by three children. His daughter Kristi Ortiz is a physician's assistant in Houston, TX. A son, Ron Brandon, lives in Oxford, NY, and his daughter Ellie Brandon lives in New York.
A memorial service has been planned for Sunday, January 10, 2010, at 10:30 a.m. MST in Denver, CO. The memorial will be held at Film/Video Equipment Services, 800 South Jason Street, Denver. The family has asked for donations in Brandon's memory be made to the American Transplant Foundation (www.americantransplantfoundation.org), or the Donor Alliance (www.donoralliance.org).
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