German photographer Thomas Hoepker, who has died aged 88, became renowned for his humanistic approach to capturing the joys and tribulations of the human condition. He is best remembered for his iconic portraits of Muhammad Ali, taken over a two-week period in Chicago in 1966, and is best known for his controversial photograph of five young men in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, relaxing as the World Trade Center burned across the East River on September 11, 2001.
Hoepker initially rejected the photograph because he thought it was taken too far from Ground Zero. Years later, as he reviewed his work, he realized that the distance in time infused the image with powerful symbolism.
When the photo was finally published in 2006, Hoepker was faced with allegations that the photo had been taken out of context and without consent by one of his subjects. He responded: “As a photojournalist, I do my best not to influence the events I witness. When you start a conversation or ask for permission, you instantly change any real situation.”
This shot matched his method: “My photography is about waiting in the background until everything falls into place and the picture comes together.”
This patient, quiet approach, combined with a mastery of exposure, framing and composition, has led to unforgettable and empathetic photographic reportage in a career spanning seven decades. He has photographed lovers in New York, leprosy patients in Ethiopia, children playing by the Wall in East Berlin and the Mayan people in Guatemala.
He wanted to make a difference, not just record. He covered natural and man-made disasters, always emphasizing the dignity of his subjects. In 1967, he traveled alone to Bihar, India, to report on famine, floods, and smallpox. The work was harrowing, and Hoepker often struggled with the internal accusation of being a voyeuristic witness. But the camera allowed him to be objective and give voice to those he photographed, calling for a more humane and just world.
When Stern magazine published the images, the feature prompted a huge charitable outpouring of donations and prompted the German government to step in to help. “It’s one thing to take good photos, but every now and then you have to go beyond that and do something meaningful,” Hoepker said. “You have to have the feeling that you’re doing more than just pressing the shutter.”
Twenty years after declining an invitation from his idol Elliott Erwitt, he became the first German to become a full member of Magnum Photos in 1989. He was president of the agency from 2003 to 2007. He received two World Press awards, in 1967 and 1977, and was inducted into the Leica Hall of Fame in 2014. Numerous books of his work have been published and his photographs have been exhibited around the world.
She was born in Munich, the only child of journalist Wolfgang Höpker and his wife Sigrid (née von Klösterlein). During the Second World War, the family’s flat in Mandlstrasse was bombed and they moved to the small Bavarian town of Albertaich. The turmoil at the end of the war and her father’s work meant that the family moved frequently, and Hoepker’s early school life was disrupted.
At the age of 14, his grandfather gave him a 9 x 12 glass plate camera, and Hoepker was hooked. At the Kirchenpauer high school in Hamburg, he sold prints he made in the family bathroom and after graduating, he bought his first 35mm camera. His father wanted him to get a “real job,” so in 1956 he began studying art history and classical archaeology at LMU Munich and then at the University of Göttingen, pursuing his passions along the way.
His education taught him composition and what constituted a striking image, and he put these into good use during trips to Italy in the 1950s. There he developed his neorealist street photography, whose ability to reveal human intimacy led to the magnificent 1956 image he called Love-birds in Rome. His work led to two awards in the young photographer category at the Photokina trade fair in Cologne.
He was impatient to get started and dropped out of university: “I didn’t study photography, I just did it. The academic world wasn’t my world.” In 1959 he was hired by Münchner Illustrierte, then moved to Hamburg to work at Kristall magazine, a decision that would send him to the US and turbo-charge his career.
In May 1945, when Hoepker was nine years old, two American soldiers, one black and one white, climbed out of two Sherman tanks that had entered Alberta. The soldiers handed out chocolate and gum and let the children see the highlights of their hometown with a 3D View-Master. From that moment on, young Hoepker was smitten with the idea of the United States.
He wasn’t alone: Postwar Germany believed America was a land of milk and honey, and in 1963, Kristall’s editor wanted to see if the hype was justified. He sent Hoepker and writer Rolf Winter on a road trip from New York to the West Coast and back. Inspired by his recent purchase of Robert Frank’s The Americans, Hoepker packed two Leica cameras and a laundry bag of Tri-X film and set off.
The journey, made in a rented Oldsmobile Cutlass, took three months. Hoepker returned home with images of a middle America that contradicted Germany’s idealized view of the American dream. His social documentary photography emphasized inequality in wealth, class, and race: instead of a land of opportunity, he witnessed a land of broken dreams.
His work in the US brought him international fame and in 1964 he joined Stern magazine as a foreign correspondent and began distributing his work through Magnum Photos. His first exhibition was at the Arts and Crafts Museum in Hamburg the following year.
In 1966, Stern sent him to London to photograph boxer Muhammad Ali before his fight against British heavyweight Brian London at Earl’s Court. Six months later, Hoepker travelled to Chicago and captured The Greatest in a series of defining images.
In 1973 he made two documentaries about the Ethiopian famine, which, together with his photographs, sparked a major aid project in Germany. In 1974, he moved to East Berlin with his second wife, journalist Eva Windmöller, to continue writing the diaries he had begun in 1959, beyond the Iron Curtain.
The couple moved to New York in 1976, which would be her home for the rest of her life. From there, she crossed continents and worked for Stern until 1989. In July 2009, she proudly became a U.S. citizen while retaining her German citizenship.
After being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2017, he wanted to take one last trip to rediscover the entire United States.
His 2020 journey with his third wife, filmmaker Christine Kruchen, was turned into a meditative documentary called Dear Memories, which was released in cinemas in 2022. The accompanying book, The Way It Was, brought together the artist’s contemporary colour photographs with black-and-white images from 1963.
His first two marriages ended in divorce. He is survived by Christine and Vilma Treue, whom he married in 2003, and his son Fabian from his first marriage.
• Thomas Martin Renatus Hoepker, photographer, born 10 June 1936; died 10 July 2024