German photographer Thomas Hoepker, who has died aged 88, was praised for his humanistic approach to capturing the joys and tribulations 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 best known for his controversial photograph of five young people apparently relaxing in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, as the World Trade Center burned across the East River on September 11, 2001.
Hoepker initially rejected the photo because he felt it was taken too far from Ground Zero. Years later, when he looked at his work, he realized that the distance in time had imbued the image with powerful symbolism.
When the photo was finally published in 2006, Hoepker was challenged by one of its subjects for having been taken out of context and without permission. He responded, “As a photojournalist, I do my best not to influence the events I see. If you were to start a conversation or ask permission, you would change any authentic situation in an instant.”
This shot was in keeping with his method: “My photography is all about waiting in the background until everything falls into place and the photo is created.”
This patient, gentle approach, combined with his mastery of lighting, framing and composition, produced memorable and empathetic photo reports in a career that spanned seven decades. He photographed lovers in New York, lepers in Ethiopia, children playing by the Wall in East Berlin and the Mayans in Guatemala.
He wanted not only to record, but also to make a difference. He documented natural and man-made disasters, always emphasizing the dignity of his subjects. In 1967, he traveled alone to Bihar, India, to report on the famine, floods, and a smallpox epidemic there. The work was heartbreaking, and Hoepker often struggled with the internal accusation of witness as voyeur. But the camera allowed him to be impartial and give a voice to those he photographed, and to call for a more humane and just world.
When Stern magazine published the images, the article led to large charitable donations and the German government was encouraged to help. Hoepker said, “Taking good pictures is one thing, but every now and then you have to go further and do something meaningful. You have to at least get the feeling that you have done more … than just 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 from his idol, Elliott Erwitt. He served as the agency’s president 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. Numerous books have been published about his work and his photographs have been exhibited around the world.
The only child of Wolfgang Höpker, a journalist, and his wife Sigrid (née von Klösterlein), he was born in Munich. During World War II, the family’s apartment on Mandlstrasse was bombed and they were moved to the small Bavarian town of Albertaich. The unrest at the end of the war and his father’s job meant that the family moved frequently and Hoepker’s early education was disrupted.
When he was 14, his grandfather gave him a 9 x 12 glass plate camera, and Hoepker was hooked. At Kirchenpauer High School in Hamburg, he sold prints he made in the family bathroom, and after graduating, he bought his first 35mm camera. His father wanted him to get a “real job,” so in 1956 he began studying art history and classical archaeology at the LMU Munich and then at the University of Göttingen, all the while pursuing his passion.
His education taught him about composition and what makes a striking image, which he put to good use during trips to Italy in the 1950s. There he perfected his neorealist street photography; his talent for revealing human intimacy yielded the fantastic 1956 image he called Love-birds in Rome. His work led to two awards in the young photographers category at the Photokina trade fair in Cologne.
He couldn’t wait to get started and dropped out of university: “I didn’t study photography, I just did it. Academia wasn’t my world.” In 1959 he was picked up by Münchner Illustrierte, then moved to Hamburg to work for Kristall magazine, a decision that would send him to the US and boost his career.
When Hoepker was nine, in May 1945, two American GIs, one black and one white, climbed out of two Sherman tanks that had rolled into Albertaich. The soldiers handed out chocolate bars and chewing gum and showed the children the most beautiful places in their homeland via a 3D View-Master. From that moment on, the young Hoepker was completely taken with the idea of the US.
He wasn’t alone: postwar Germany believed America was the land of milk and honey, and in 1963 the editor of Kristall wanted to see 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. Inspired by his recent purchase of Robert Frank’s book The Americans , Hoepker packed two Leica cameras and a laundry bag full of Tri-X film and set off.
The journey, in a rented Oldsmobile Cutlass, lasted three months. Hoepker returned home with images of middle America that belied Germany’s idealized vision of the American dream. His social documentary photography emphasized the inequality of wealth, class, and race: instead of the land of opportunity, he witnessed the land of broken dreams.
His work in the US brought him international recognition and in 1964 he joined Stern Magazine as a foreign correspondent and Magnum Photos began distributing his work. His first exhibition was the following year at the Museum of Arts and Crafts in Hamburg.
In 1966, Stern sent him to London to photograph boxer Muhammad Ali before his fight against British heavyweight Brian London at Earl’s Court. Six months later, Hoepker went to Chicago and captured The Greatest in a series of defining images.
In 1973 he made two documentaries about the famine in Ethiopia, which together with his photographs initiated a major 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 had begun in 1959.
The couple moved to New York in 1976, where he would remain for the rest of his life. From there he crossed continents and worked for Stern until 1989. In July 2009 he proudly became an American citizen, while retaining his German citizenship.
After being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2017, he wanted to take one last road trip to retrace his steps in the US.
The journey he took in 2020 with his third wife, filmmaker Christine Kruchen, was turned into a meditative documentary, Dear Memories, which hit theaters in 2022. The accompanying book, The Way It Was, juxtaposed his contemporary color photographs with the black-and-white images from 1963.
His first two marriages ended in divorce. He is survived by Christine, whom he married in 2003, and his son Fabian from his first marriage to Vilma Treue.
• Thomas Martin Renatus Hoepker, photographer, born June 10, 1936; died July 10, 2024