In this month's RG Magazine, page 26 of the feature on photojournalist Richard Saunders read incorrectly. It should have read as follows: Through photography both Saunders and his wife made a lively circle of friends - among them another gifted black photographer, Gordon Parks. Parks, ironically once a member of the Harlem YMCA Camera Club with fellow student Hilton Hill in the 1930s, believed in Saunders' photographic ability and introduced him to Roy Stryker who ran the photography project at Standard Oil.

During the blizzard of 1949, Stryker phoned Saunders at 5 a.m. with a request to go out and photo document the turmoil. This was the start of an important relationship as some of Saunders' best photo journalism would evolve from Stryker's assignments. The Pittsburgh photographic project in 1951, for example, became an important social document. It captured the effects on the people of the dynamic redevelopment of that city during the post-war years.

The late Bermudian photojournalist Richard Saunders earned an international reputation for honesty and integrity in his work. Fellow Bermudian photographer Graeme Outerbridge, who is curator for a forthcoming retrospective of Saunders' best black and white work at the National Gallery, profiles a remarkable talent.

The turning point for Richard (Dick) Saunders came the day the Trade Development Board turned him down for a photographic position. At the time there was a policy in place not to hire blacks, not even in the darkroom.

Saunders was crestfallen and depressed. As he turned up Queen Street, he took his frustration out by kicking stones along his path. David Knudsen, an accomplished photographer himself, spotted the young Saunders from the door of his business. He could see that Sanuders was upset about something and called him over. On hearing what had happened, Knudsen, without hesitation, created a new position in his photo business (later The Camera Store) for Saunders. It was a decisive day for Saunders. That day initiated the real beginning of his photography career and a lifelong friendship with Knudsen, his daughter Betty and his son-in-law Crayton Greene. The Camera Store would eventually become Saunders' talisman and a special place he sought out on return visits to Bermuda.

Saunders' chance started with Knudsen, but he was determined to fulfill his higher ambition: to become a photographer of the world. Photography had been his Pied Piper. As a boy, he always had the curiosity and interest to follow the black portrait photographer, Mr. Simmons, around Hamilton as he plied his trade to the tourists. The distinctive big portable view camera and black cape used by Simmons, and the process of taking pictures were magical to Saunders.

The spell of photography would stay with him for a lifetime.

He was also encouraged by Canadian sculptress Byllee Lang, a leading figure in the Bermudian arts scene in the 1930s and photographer Hilton Hill, later best man at Saunders' wedding. It was Hill, then an amateur, who first taught the teenaged Saunders how to process and develop film and Saunders later worked at Hill's studio on Burnaby Street in the early 1940s taking wedding pictures, portraits and other work. "Richard always had a talent for finding the centre of interest in a photograph,'' recalls Hill. "It was an in-born ability to compose and emphasise just more than a portrait of a scene or individual. He was able to develop drama in his pictures which most of us weren't able to do.'' With his will of steel and a heart of gold, Saunders made himself into a photographer of international repute. He would eventually embrace the world through his travels and his camera with a sensitive compassionate mind and a well-honed photographic skill. His other assets were his strong character and an exceptional partner in his wife of 41 years, Emily, whom he met in the 1930s and married in New York in 1946. In 1954, a bikini-clad Emily, shot by Saunders at Whale Bay, graced the cover of Ebony magazine.

Born in 1922, Richard Clive Saunders had first experimented with cameras as a schoolboy in New Jersey where his family lived in the 1930s. Shortly after the start of the Second World War, the family returned to Bermuda where Saunders worked as a police photographer but knew it was not what he wanted to do. In 1946 Saunders left Bermuda for New York City to take courses at the Modern Photography School. He then continued with more studies in Humanities and Sociology at Brooklyn College and the New School for Social Research.

During those early years he freelanced in New York, with Emily acting as his assistant on assignments. One assignment Emily still recalls with a feeling of fun was their collaboration on a story on all the great night clubs on 52nd Street. Although there was not much money in these early assignments, there was plenty of interest and excitement living in New York. Through photography both Saunders and his wife made a lively circle of friends - among them another gifted black photographer, Gordon Parks. Parks, ironically once a member of the Harlem YMCA Camera Club with fellow student Hilton Hill in the 1930s, believed in Saunders' photographic ability and introduced him to Roy Stryker who ran the photography project at Standard Oil. During the blizzard of 1949, Stryker phoned Saunders at 5 a.m. with a request to go out and photo document the turmoil. Thiswas the start of an important relationship as some of Saunders' best photo journalism would evolve from Stryker's assignments.

The Pittsburgh photographic project in 1951, for example, became an important social document. It captured the effects on the people of the dynamic redevelopment of that city during the post-war years. Stryker chose wisely in selecting Saunders for this project. He had recognised a key quality in Richard Saunders and his photographic philosophy - he was by the people and for the people. Saunders' assignment was to record life in the Hill District, a rundown, predominantly black area and he literally moved into the Hill District for two years, taking between four to five thousand pictures of the area and its people. In an interview with the prestigious Swiss magazine Camera, Saunders stated: "What matters to me are people and their feelings; above all it is the unconquerable dignity of man, of whatever colour, creed or persuasion that must come through in my photographs. Photography is communication; a photograph is nothing unless it is seen, and unless it conveys something of life to the viewer.'' Saunders, who regarded his profession as "a very privileged existence'', believed that to manipulate, even pose, his subjects in any form would translate into bias and dishonesty.

He felt that by directing his subject in any form would do visual violence to a situation that should only be interpreted; truth would be changed and become a lie. This personal philosophy is shown clearly in all his pictures.

Compassion and human understanding announce themselves in all of his best photo essays. "I could never manipulate my subjects to fit preconceived notions or bias,'' he once said. "Truth would be changed and become untruth.

And I am not concerned about the great technically-executed picture. I want to grasp a precise moment of life, and at that moment one is not concerned with film type or angle. One is interested in sharing an experience.'' Saunders was a man who believed in, and lived for, his chosen profession. It was as much the blending of his own compassion and friendliness with a unique vision that made him such a remarkable talent. In 1967, after many years of successful freelancing, he joined Topic magazine (a quarterly US Information Agency publication covering sub-Saharan Africa) as international editor and photographer. During his tenure there he visited more than 30 nations in Africa. He covered a remarkable period of post-colonial Africa. Saunders met and photographed just about every African head of state, and spent much time out in the country photographing stories on African village life. He approached all assignments with equal enthusiasm finding interest in all the many people he met and whose lives he documented.

Emily Saunders, reflecting on her husband's life, said that Richard was happy with what he did. There were no regrets. Photojournalism had been a fascinating extended adventure. He encountered a new experience with each assignment through his dedication and hard work. He made "one day into today''. Photo editor Kay Reese, who worked with Saunders for 25 years on numerous freelance assignments, describes Saunders as "one of the best''.

Reese spent more than three years fighting for an act of Congress enabling the USIA to pass over their entire collection of Saunders' work to the Schomburg Centre for Research in Black Culture in New York - something Saunders had always hoped for. Except in rare cases, USIA photographs could previously only be published overseas. "Dick was a genuine true photographer,'' says Reese.

"Some people pick up a camera to make money but with Dick, the camera was part of him. He loved what he did.'' Reese is hoping that the Schomburg will stage a retrospective of his black and white work later this year and there are plans for a Saunders book, featuring much of his African work, the body of which has never been seen in the US or Bermuda. Reese met Saunders initially in the mid-1950s through the American Society of Magazine Photographers (now the American Society of Media Photographers), of which Saunders was a founding member. She recalls: "In those days, editors would say, `We like your idea, go and shoot it. If we like it and use it, we'll pay you'. So the photographers bore all the expenses and made about $40 a day. It was very hard for freelancers, especially black freelancers.'' Andrew Bardagjy, Saunders' editor and friend at Topic for 11 years, states: "Dick was top notch. He had an insight into the human condition and a completelove for people. He was true to the highest calling of the tenets of photo journalism. He always strove to record life as it was. In pictorial terms, on assignments, the pictures were either there or they weren't.'' Bardagjy noted that Saunders liked to get close to the people he photographed, hence his reliance on wide angle lenses. On the first day of each assignment he would go without his cameras in an effort to build a special rapport with his subjects. The following day he would go with his cameras and penetrate the surface into the spirit of his subject. Saunders did this without fanfare. He loved the process of getting good pictures more than the process of publishing. In an article marking Saunders' retirement in 1986, Bardagjy wrote: "If there is such a thing as a Saunders style, it is to emphasise people, especially children. This becomes immediately apparent in any review of his work; personally and professionally, he loves children. He often will go out of his way to include them in his photographs. However, he is careful to stay at a distance or put away his camera if he senses that he is intruding upon them. As he puts it, `If I can bring some hope or a smile on some child's face, then to me it's all worthwhile.' His sensitivity to people is clearly evident in his photographs.'' Two of Saunders' favourite assignments were retracing Roots author Alex Haley's travels in western Africa and the World Black and African Festival of Arts and Culture in Nigeria in 1977. Africa, he would say, was like going home. He collected African artifacts and always would return home to America with some small gift to colleagues and friends to share his experiences. He had a particular fondness for children wherever he met them - and they for him. Many of his strongest works are based on his concern for children, their particular circumstance, their purity and ever-lasting hope. He felt deep reverence for the many dedicated teachers he encountered throughout Africa. He marvelled at their skilled capacity and gift at educating children in challenging and difficult environments. Dick and Emily never had children of their own. As Emily said in an interview with The Royal Gazette shortly after his death in August, 1987: "Neither one of us ever felt there was anything missing in our lives. We used to say the children of the world were our children.'' During his career Saunders photographed for Ebony, Look, Life, Fortune, The New York Times and Paris Match. Among the noted personalities and famous figures he photographed were Henry Kissinger, Malcolm X, Elijah Muhammed, James Baldwin, Roy Wilkins, Adam Clayton Powell, Aaron Copeland and Louise Nevelson. In Crayton Greene's words; "His life was a triumph of will.'' His many professional awards were capped with receipt of the first award of the Bermuda Arts Council's Lifetime Achievement Award in 1987. Sadly, the award had to be made posthumously because Saunders died of a heart attack, shortly before he was due to have a leg amputated as a result of diabetes. He was 65. Emily says his death was something of a blessing. "I knew within myself that he wouldn't be able to adjust to (the amputation) because he was someone who always wanted to be on the move.'' Richard Saunders was much loved and respected. He wove a deep, rich tapestry of humanity into his life and experiences. He was an exceptional man and his gift is still with us through his photographs. The National Gallery exhibition, which will include works featured in this issue, will be mounted in the Ondaatje Wing from March 12 to June 1. Additional reporting by Chris Gibbons. PHOTO Richard Saunders: "A photograph is nothing unless it is seen and conveys something of life to the viewer.'' Wife Emily at Whale Bay. Girl and toys. After the parade, early 1950s. Malcolm X lecturing in Harlem, 1950's. Mother and child. Muslim sisters of the Nation of Islam. Harlem school students, mid-1960's.

RG MAGAZINE MARCH 1993