Dirck Halstead
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Dirck Halstead, (born December 1936 in Huntington, New York), is a photojournalist, and editor and publisher of an online photojournalism magazine.
Halstead started in photojournalism while in high school. At age 17, he became Life magazine's youngest combat photographer covering the Guatemalan Civil War. After attending Haverford College, he went on to work for UPI for more than 15 years. During the Vietnam War he was UPI's picture bureau chief in Saigon.
In 1972 he accepted a contract with Time covering the White House for the next 29 years. Halstead was one of six photographers who accompanied Richard Nixon to China in 1972. His photographs have appeared on 47 Time covers, more than any other photographer. During this period he also worked as a "Special Photographer" on films to produce photography used in advertising materials for the major studios. The films he worked on included, Goodfellas, Memphis Belle, Shaft, Black Rain, Dragon, Dune, Conan the Barbarian series, Greystoke, and Cliffhanger.
Halstead is now a senior fellow in photojournalism at the Center For American History at the University of Texas at Austin. He has won the NPPA Picture of the Year award twice, the Robert Capa Gold Medal for his coverage of the fall of Saigon, and two Eisies. In 2002 he received the lifetime achievement award from the White House News Photographers Association, and in 2004 he won the Joseph A. Sprague Award for lifetime achievement and service to photojournalism.
His new book is Moments in Time: Photos and Stories from One of America's Top Photojournalists New York: Harry N. Abrams, December 2006).
Halstead is also the editor and publisher of The Digital Journalist, a multimedia online magazine about photojournalism.