ted russell

BIo

Ted Russell, a former photographer for LIFE magazine, was born in London. The son of an American foreign correspondent and his French war bride, Russell began photographing at age 10, and by age 15, was apprenticing in news photography in London’s Fleet Street. The following year he worked as a stringer photographer for Acme Newspictures in Brussels. He later joined the staff of NOW, an English language picture magazine, published by former Stars & Stripes staffers in Frankfurt Germany, for Americans in Europe.

When NOW folded he shot covers for the U.S. Army’s SPOTLIGHT magazine in Nuremberg, and freelanced briefly in Paris before boarding the Queen Mary for New York, arriving with four cameras and $200. He was soon drafted and served as unit photographer with the Army’s 2nd Engineers in the Korean war. After attending the University of California at Berkeley, he returned to New York and became a regular contributing photographer for LIFE magazine for over 12 years, shooting hundreds of domestic and overseas assignments for LIFE and Time Life books.

After LIFE weekly suspended publication, he did numerous advertising and annual report assignments before turning his hand to photo editing, ending up as Cover Photo Editor of NEWSWEEK magazine for 11 years.

His covers have appeared on LIFE, NEWSWEEK, TIME, SATURDAY REVIEW, UNCUT, and NEW YORK magazines, and many record and CD albums and books. Russell has won awards in the NPPA/ University of Missouri School of Journalism Pictures of the Year Competition, from the AIGA and Art Direction Magazine, and his photos have been exhibited at the International Center of Photography and the Museum of Modern Art.