Jerry Burchard was born December 1, 1931 and raised in Rochester, Upstate New York. At the age of 16 Jerry was a third generation Kodak worker (the largest employer in the area.)He joined the Navy and served as a photographer in Europe, shooting mostly car and plane wrecks that involved military equipment.
After the Navy, at the suggestion of Minor White, Jerry attended and later taught (and was chairman of the department for a while) what is now called the San Francisco Art Institute. At this time in the 50's Jerry was doing portraits of the San Francisco North Beach artists, after wanting originally to do jazz musicians but finding that most of them had died.
In the 70's Jerry would teach for a while at SFAI, and then would go live for months at a time in exotic places around the world, hang out, and take photos.
Casablanca, Goulimine, Madrid, Ping Yuen, Bangkok, Burma, and other locations were all well suited for Jerry's night walks with his camera, capturing the ambiance, the feel of being there. (His favorite became Bangkok, Thailand.)
One time Jerry told me that he found a rock by some bushes to set up the camera, opened the shudder and went to have a drink. Jerry came back, took a look at the scene, and decided that it was a two drink exposure, so went back to have that second drink. 'It's whatever feels right' he use to tell me.
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Randy Magnus
