Werner Bischof (26 April 1916 – 16 May 1954) was a Swiss photographer and photojournalist.
His works on the devastation in post-war Europe established him as one of the foremost photojournalists of his time. In 1949, he joined Magnum Photos, which at the time was composed of just five other photographers: Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger, David Seymour, and Ernst Haas. Read full wikipedia article.
Giacomo Agostini (born 16 June 1942 in Brescia, Lombardy) is an Italian multi-time world champion Grand Prix motorcycle road racer. Nicknamed Ago, he is the all-time leader in victories in motorcycle Grand Prix history, with 122 Grand Prix wins and 15 World Championships titles. Of these, 68 wins and 8 titles came in the 500cc class, the rest in the 350cc class.
Agostini was the son of a wealthy Italian industrialist. His father originally didn’t approve of his son’s motorcycle racing career. He did everything he could to persuade his son not to race. Agostini would have to steal away to compete, first in hill climb events and then in road racing.
Eventually his father came to terms with his racing and he won the 1963 Italian 175cc championship aboard a Morini. He got his break when Morini factory rider, Tarquinio Provini left the team to ride for Benelli. Count Alfonso Morini hired the young Agostini to ride for him. In 1964, Agostini would win the Italian 350cc title and proved his ability by finishing fourth in the Italian Grand Prix at Monza.
These results caught the eye of Count Domenico Agusta who signed Agostini to ride for his MV Agusta squad as Mike Hailwood’s team-mate. Agostini then fought a season-long battle with Honda’s Jim Redman for the 1965 350cc world championship. He seemed to have the title won when he led the final round in Japan at Suzuka when his bike failed him, handing the title to Redman. Read full wikipedia article.
The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club (HAMC) is a worldwide one-percenter motorcycle gang and organized crime syndicate whose members typically ride Harley-Davidson motorcycles. In the United States and Canada, the Hells Angels are incorporated as the Hells Angels Motorcycle Corporation. Their primary motto is “When we do right, nobody remembers. When we do wrong, nobody forgets”.
The name “Hells Angels” was believed to have been inspired by the common historical use, in both World War I and World War II, to name squadrons or other fighting groups by fierce, death-defying name. The Flying Tigers in China fielded three squadrons of aircraft, and one squadron was named “Hell’s Angels”. The 1930 Howard Hughes film Hell’s Angels displayed extraordinary and dangerous feats of aviation. Read full wikipedia article.
Photo source: LIFE Magazine.
Hippolyte Bayard (20 January 1807 – 14 May 1887) was one of the earliest photographers in the history of photography, inventing his own photography process known as direct positive printing and presenting the world’s first public exhibition of photographs on 24 June 1839.
The direct positive process involved exposing silver chloride paper to light, which turned the paper completely black. It was then soaked in potassium iodide before being exposed in a camera. After the exposure, it was washed in a bath of hyposulfite of soda and dried. The resulting image was a unique photograph that could not be reproduced. Due to the paper’s poor light sensitivity, an exposure of approximately twelve minutes was required. Using this method of photography, still subject matter, such as buildings, were favored. When used for photographing people, sitters were told to close their eyes so as to eliminate the eerie, “dead” quality produced due to blinking and moving one’s eyes during such a long exposure. Read full wikipedia article.
