On Assignment

Photojournalists simply don't come any better than those that worked for LIFE magazine.  Here we see some of LIFE's top photographers in action, from the operating room to the heart of combat. 

With almost every portrait I have linked to a picture from the photographer's assignment (or a very similar one, if I couldn't find it exactly); click the photograph for the link. 

Photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt in surgical gown and mask covering "painless childbirth" at a hospital in Philadelphia, USA, 1944. Source

Alfred Eisenstaedt photographing artist Thomas Hart Benton in Benton's studio, Martha's Vineyard, MA, USA, 1957. Source

Photographer Carl Mydans on assignment covering Khrushchev's visit to the US, 1959. Source

'LIFE photographer Carl Mydans (C) w. other photographers aboard ship bound for Luzon and Gen. Douglas MacArthur's "return to the Philippines" ', 1945. Source

Photographers Carl Mydans and George Silk on assignment in Italy, 1944. Source

Photographer Francis Miller shooting the presidential beagles at the White House, 1964. Source

Frank Scherschel covering the wedding of Princess (now Queen) Elizabeth in London, 1947. Source

Photographer Larry Burrows on assignment in Vietnam, 1963. Source

Photographer Margaret Bourke-White preparing to photograph from high in NYC, while with Fortune magazine in 1931. Source

Margaret Bourke-White in flying suit with aerial camera, in front of the bomber "in which she made combat mission photographs of the US attack on Tunis." Algeria, 1943.

Photographer Paul Schutzer on assignment in Vietnam. Source

Paul Schutzer in Iran after a major earthquake, 1962. Source

Photographer Paul Schutzer in East Berlin, 1961. Source

Photographer Nina Leen shooting a swimsuit model, 1945. Source

Photographer Robert Capa in gear, preparing to jump in with the troops in WW2, 1945. Source

Robert Capa in gear again, preparing for D-Day landings, 1944. Source

Photographer Ralph Morse in flight gear while shooting a story on the space program, 1954. Source

Photographer Yale Joel trying on a toupee while on assignment at a wig and toupee shop, NYC, 1954. Source

Photographer J. R. Eyerman covering damaged areas in Japan, 1945. Source

Photographer Co Rentmeester, wounded during action in Vietnam, 1968 (he was okay). Source

Photographer Co Rentmeester in better circumstances, with Javanese children in Java, Indonesia, 1968. Source

Photographer Bob Landry posing for a photo with the king of Saudi Arabia, 1942. Source

Bob Landry with his camera, 1945. Source