Denis Cameron (photographer)

Denis Cameron (October 19, 1928 – October 6, 2006) was an American photojournalist who was best known for his war photography.

Cameron was born on October 19, 1928 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He took on a variety of jobs, including work as a pilot in Alaska. In the mid-1950s, he began working as a Hollywood stills photographer. He worked on the sets of several movies, including Birdman of Alcatraz, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, and A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. He was later employed by Life magazine.^[1]

In 1963, Cameron covered the war in Cyprus together with Don McCullin. Next, he was a photojournalist in the Six-Day War of 1967.^[1] One of the notable photographs he captured, picturing lieutenant Yossi Ben Hanan triumphantly clutching an AK-47 rifle, captioned "Israeli soldier cools off in the Suez Canal", was used on the cover of Life magazine.^[2]

As a photographer, he was present present on site of the Prague Spring of 1968. In late 1969, he was sent on assignment by Time and Newsweek to Southeast Asia. He stayed there for six years, documenting the Vietnam War, the Laotian Civil War, and the Cambodian Civil War.^[1][3] On February 11, 1974, he suffered burns on his legs and right arm while covering an artillery attack in Cambodia.^[4] He unsuccessfully attempted to prepare an evacuation of hundreds of orphans by plane.^[5] In 1975, when most war correspondents fled Cambodia, Cameron stayed in Phnom Penh. He spent a month imprisoned in the French embassy together with 20 other journalists, including Sydney Schanberg and Jon Swain, before being released to Thailand. He was a consultant for the 1984 film The Killing Fields about the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, but upon watching the completed film, he sought to have his consultative credit removed.^[1]

He was present on site of the Lebanese Civil War, the Iranian Revolution, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the Gulf War.^[1] He lived in Los Angeles, Paris, and London. He was married twice and had two children: a son and a daughter. He suffered from dementia and Parkinson's disease. He passed away at the Royal Free Hospital in London on October 6, 2006.^[5]