Brian Lanker, 63, Loses Brief Battle With Cancer
By Donald R. Winslow
© 2011 News Photographer magazine
EUGENE, OR (March 14, 2011) – Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist and filmmaker Brian Lanker, a newspaper and Life magazine, National Geographic, and Sports Illustrated photographer whose book "I Dream A World: Portraits of Black Women Who Changed America" was one of the most successful photography books ever, has died at his home in Eugene after battling pancreatic cancer for less than two weeks. He was 63.
Lanker's doctors discovered the inoperable cancer only 10 days ago, the photographer's long-time friend and former coworker Blaine Newnham told News Photographer magazine. It was at such an advanced stage that doctors told Lanker there was little if anything that could be done for treatment or recovery and Lanker went home to be with his family for his last days.
Family members told friends that Lanker passed peacefully and was not in pain Sunday evening.
He is survived by his wife, Lynda Lanker, a regionally recognized artist herself, and his adult children: Julie Coburn, Jacki Coburn, and Dustin Lanker.
"Lynda said that Brian was on to a new adventure," Newnham said.
Lanker won the 1973 Pulitzer Prize for Photography for "Moment Of Life," a small black-and-white photography essay that captured Lynda [then Coburn] giving birth via the Lamaze method, which was a newsworthy development in the early 1970s. The photographer was 25 years old. Lynda was 29 and giving birth to her second child, Jacki. When the Coburns divorced, Lynda and Brian married on December 31, 1974.
"I found a great deal of joy in the two Pulitzer winners that year, because the News photo was Nick Ut's from Vietnam [the "Napalm Girl" picture]," Lanker told the Newseum during a video interview. "To have this war photograph on one end of the spectrum winning the Pulitzer, and the horror of the life these children were experiencing, and then to have the joy of the moment of life, a child being born in the middle of America in Kansas, I think it was a wonderful contrast within one given year of the Pulitzers."
"Everyone knows that Brian was a giant in our profession, but for those of us close to him, he was the most remarkable person I've ever known," Rich Clarkson said today from Denver. Clarkson was Lanker's photography director at the Topeka Capital-Journal when Lanker won the Pulitzer.
"His generosity, his help for many others without concern for what they might do for him, was amazing. We had just worked on a project together and were planning the next venture. The professional element inherent in all he did was a core of great ideas – and then amazing execution," Clarkson said.
"It was a pleasure working with him in all the days since Topeka. But far beyond the creativity, the professionalism, the brilliance – he was the most caring, gentle and thoughtful person I've ever known. We all knew it was coming, last week we were told it was getting close, but this is still very sudden."
"This is a huge loss – but left behind is a legacy that asks all of us to take those traits onward in his memory," Clarkson said, "and try to do good things as he would have."
Lanker's daughter Julie and son Dustin had weddings planned for later this year, and when it became apparent that their father would be unable to attend their weddings both of the ceremonies were held bedside a few days ago at the family home in Eugene. Julie's wedding ceremony was performed on Friday, and Dustin's wedding was held on Saturday. Coburn married David Nagle; Dustin married Jennifer Darby.
No funeral services are planned for this time, according to the family, but a memorial service will be planned for sometime soon, possibly in May.
As little as two weeks ago Lanker did not know he was seriously ill. During a trip to Los Angeles he experienced some discomfort that grew worse during the week, and when he returned home he immediately sought medical attention. It was then, after tests, that Lanker learned the seriousness and extent of his illness.
Lanker's newspaper career started at the Phoenix Gazette, and then he worked for the Topeka Capital-Journal from 1969 until 1974 when he moved to Eugene and The Register-Guard. He joined the Register-Guard staff as a photographer, Newnham said, but very shortly Lanker became the newspaper's graphics director and he stayed in that post until October 1982, when he left the to become a freelancer.
He has been an NPPA member since 1966. Lanker was the Newspaper Photographer of the Year twice, in 1972 and 1975, when the title was determined by a single contest called Pictures of the Year, jointly sponsored by the University of Missouri School of Journalism and NPPA.
He was NPPA's Regional Photographer of the Year six times, in 1968, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, and 1973. Lanker was awarded NPPA's highest honor, the Joseph A. Sprague Memorial Award, in 1979 and he was a National Press Photographers Foundation Medal recipient in 2000.
When an exhibit of photographs from "I Dream A World" opened at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, it set attendance records for the 111-year-old museum. The book is still a huge seller, passing more than a half a million copies, and it is currently in its 14th printing.
As a highly-successful freelance photographer, Lanker also did a great deal of commercial and advertising work. His venture into film came with his first documentary "They Drew Fire: Combat Artists Of WWII," which was a highly-acclaimed PBS prime time program in 2000.
Lanker's extended photographic essay "Shall We Dance," a story about dance in America from ballet to tap to salsa to swing, was published in National Geographic magazine in July 2006 as well as being presented as a tabletop book by Chronicle Books. He traveled across America for a year, photographing every kind of dance and dancer he encountered, and the book's forward was written by his friend, a poet and former dancer herself, Maya Angelou.
Also for National Geographic, Lanker contributed to the 2007 book "Where Valor Rests," about Arlington National Cemetery, and a piece called "On The Bus" in July 2006. Photographs from "I Dream A World" were published in Geographic in August 1989, and for National Geographic's Traveler magazine in the Summer 1987 issue he shot "The Spirit Of Santa Fe."
Lanker spent almost a year intricately planning a 2010 reunion of former Capital-Journal photographers to surprise and honor Rich Clarkson, and friends today remember that Lanker often said during that time that he wanted to get everyone together one more time "before it is too late." The result of his detailed planning was a two-day party in Eugene called "20inthecar," a reference to Clarkson's radio call-sign, and a video from the event and a gallery of photographs is online at http://20inthecar.com.
NPPA president Sean D. Elliot remembers Brian Lanker in his blog today
NPPA Marketplace
- Join the NPPA
- NPPA members receive a wide range of benefits, from educational opportunities to mentoring, exclusive discounts, insurance options, business tips, and much more.