Bob Willoughby

Bob Willoughby (born 1927 in Los Angeles, California) is an American photographer.

Biography

Willoughby began taking photographs in 1939. Between 1948 and 1954, his exhibitions of photographs of jazz musicians and dancers led to a contract with Globe Photos. Later, he worked for Harper's Bazaar magazine where his photographs illustrated arts and culture articles.

His big break came when he was assigned by six magazines to photograph Judy Garland during the filming of "A Star is Born". Subsequently he was hired by Warner Brothers to film the extensive "Born in a Trunk" sequence. This was the first time a motion picture studio hired a special or unit photographer to specifically take photographs for sale to magazines. The result was a Life magazine cover featuring a close-up portrait of the pixie-faced singer in costume. It was her second Life cover and his first [http://www.life.com/Life/cover_search/view?coverkeyword=judy+garland&startMonth=1&startYear=1936&endMonth=12&endYear=2006&pageNumber=1&indexNumber=1] .

In 1963 Willoughby built the first remote radio-controlled camera for on-set still photography. This led to other innovations that enabled him to take still photographs identical to the film footage.

Willoughby continues to photograph. He lived in Ireland for 17 years where he used his photographic skills to illustrate ancient Irish poetry text with photographs of the countryside. In addition, he has authored books on photography and other subjects. For a number of years now (2007) he has lived in Vence, France, where he continues a very active professional life. Willoughby's images are represented by the Motion Picture and Television Photo Archive and can be viewed by the public at MPTV.net [http://www.mptv.net/]

Body of Work

His photographs are held in collections and exhibited worldwide including:

*Museum of Modern Art, New York
*The National Portrait Gallery, Washington, DC and London, England
*The National Museum of Photography, Bradford, UK
*The Biblioteque Nationale in Paris, France
*Musee de la Photographie, Charleroi, Belgium

External links

* [http://www.willoughbyphotos.com Bob Willoughby's website featuring a gallery and archival prints for collectors]
* [http://www.photonet.org.uk/index.php?id=104,379,0,0,1,0 The Photographers Gallery-Bob Willoughby]