Bob Adelman featured in the NYT Lens Blog

Bob Adelman featured in the NYT Lens Blog

Bob Adelman, a photographer known for his sweeping, dramatic and intimate coverage of the civil rights movement, was found dead in Miami Beach, Fla., over the weekend. The Miami Herald reportedthat a friend discovered him at his home Saturday with a head wound.

 

Mr. Adelman, 85, a philosopher-turned-photographer, forged a career committed to social activism as well as aesthetics. As the national photographer for the Congress of Racial Equality and later for Look magazine, he documented the movement in Birmingham and Montgomery in Alabama and the 1963 March on Washington.

 

In 2014 he was named, in essence, a photographer in residence at the Library of Congress, a position created to draw attention to the importance of the medium in American life. He spoke then with James Estrin about his life and career. The conversation has been edited.