{"id":5354282,"date":"2019-10-16T22:33:17","date_gmt":"2019-10-16T22:33:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.life.com\/?post_type=photographer&#038;p=5354282"},"modified":"2019-10-16T22:33:18","modified_gmt":"2019-10-16T22:33:18","slug":"john-florea","status":"publish","type":"photographer","link":"https:\/\/www.life.com\/photographer\/john-florea\/","title":{"rendered":"John Florea"},"content":{"rendered":"<blockquote id=\"single-block_5da77bb99d8e6\" class=\"single-image \">\n    <section>\n                        <img decoding=\"async\" data=\"block-image\" data-id=5355264 desc=\"Asset ID: 1120777. \" caption=\"Photographer John Florea standing in open hatch of a tank. (Photo by John Florea\/The LIFE Picture Collection &copy; Meredith Corporation)\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/static.life.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/16222433\/01120777-e1571264858219-810x1024.jpg\" alt=\"Photographer John Florea standing in open hatch of a tank. (Photo by John Florea\/The LIFE Picture Collection &copy; Meredith Corporation)\" \/>\n                <div class=\"image-info\">\n            <p class=\"image-caption\"><\/p>\n            <p class=\"image-caption\">Photographer John Florea standing in open hatch of a tank. (Photo by John Florea\/The LIFE Picture Collection \u00a9 Meredith Corporation)<\/p>\n        <\/div>\n    <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The photographs of John Florea (1916-2000) ranged from fluffier than meringue to dark as death. He was in a darkroom on December 7,1941, developing photographs of actress Jane Russell, when he heard about Pearl Harbor. He decided then and there to take his career in a different direction, which led to the dreadful combat at Tarawa, Rabaul and the Battle of the Bulge, then to the liberation of POW and concentration camps. Florea, the son of Romanian immigrants, was upset with LlFE\u2019s meager coverage of the camps: &#8220;I felt that LIFE was ignoring it at times &#8230; evidently they were afraid that it would horrify their readers.&#8221; A stormy relationship with Picture Editor Wilson Hicks finally ended with Florea and the magazine parting ways in 1949. He went on to become a very successful director and producer of popular TV shows. <\/span><\/p>\n\n<blockquote id=\"single-block_5da07f8817292\" class=\"single-image \">\n    <section>\n                        <img decoding=\"async\" data=\"block-image\" data-id=5355265 desc=\"Asset ID: 13051102. \" caption=\"Private Joe Demler, a prisoner of the Germans for 3 months, revealing his skeleton-like limbs as he lies on cot. (Photo by John Florea\/The LIFE Picture Collection &copy; Meredith Corporation)\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/static.life.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/16222509\/Florea_B_IC-e1571264850477.jpg\" alt=\"Private Joe Demler, a prisoner of the Germans for 3 months, revealing his skeleton-like limbs as he lies on cot. (Photo by John Florea\/The LIFE Picture Collection &copy; Meredith Corporation)\" \/>\n                <div class=\"image-info\">\n            <p class=\"image-caption\"><\/p>\n            <p class=\"image-caption\">Private Joe Demler, a prisoner of the Germans for 3 months, revealing his skeleton-like limbs as he lies on cot. (Photo by John Florea\/The LIFE Picture Collection \u00a9 Meredith Corporation)<\/p>\n        <\/div>\n    <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;In the town of Limburg we discovered an Allied prison camp&#8230; They asked me for food that I didn&#8217;t have. I did have a roll of Life Savers with me &#8230; and I said to these fellows all in a row, &#8216;Fellows, this is all I&#8217;ve got. So I gave each one of these kids a Life Saver out of my roll. Finally, I started to run out and I started breaking them in half and giving each one of them a half. Then I asked a couple of them if they could get up. One kid could not. He weighed something like 70 pounds, and I&#8217;ll never forget his name. His name was Demler, Joe Demler.&#8221;&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2014<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Adapted from <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Great-LIFE-Photographers-Editors\/dp\/0316097934\/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1EH15RRHPZHFO&amp;keywords=the+great+life+photographers&amp;qid=1570115481&amp;s=gateway&amp;sprefix=the+great+life+photogr%2Caps%2C142&amp;sr=8-1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Great LIFE Photographers<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n<blockquote id=\"double-block_5da07fb417293\" class=\"double-image aligncenter\">\n    <section>\n                        <img decoding=\"async\" data=\"block-image\" data-id=5355266 desc=\"Asset ID: 1220260. \" caption=\"Photographer John Florea surrounded by Chinese children in a Queen&#039;s Road marketplace. (Photo by John Florea\/The LIFE Picture Collection &copy; Meredith Corporation)\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/static.life.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/16222643\/1220260-e1571264803390.jpg\" alt=\"Photographer John Florea surrounded by Chinese children in a Queen&#039;s Road marketplace. (Photo by John Florea\/The LIFE Picture Collection &copy; Meredith Corporation)\" \/>\n                <div class=\"image-info\">\n            <p class=\"image-caption\"><\/p>\n            <p class=\"image-caption\">Photographer John Florea surrounded by Chinese children in a Queen&#8217;s Road marketplace. (Photo by John Florea\/The LIFE Picture Collection \u00a9 Meredith Corporation)<\/p>\n        <\/div>\n    <\/section>\n    <section>\n                        <img decoding=\"async\" data=\"block-image\" data-id=5355267 desc=\"Asset ID: 13051101. \" caption=\"The bodies of 3,000 of the Nazi&#039;s slave laborers in preparation for burial. (Photo by John Florea\/The LIFE Picture Collection &copy; Meredith Corporation)\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/static.life.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/16222650\/Nordhausen_IRC2-e1571264810165-1007x1024.jpg\" alt=\"The bodies of 3,000 of the Nazi&#039;s slave laborers in preparation for burial. (Photo by John Florea\/The LIFE Picture Collection &copy; Meredith Corporation)\" \/>\n                <div class=\"image-info\">\n            <p class=\"image-caption\"><\/p>\n            <p class=\"image-caption\">The bodies of 3,000 of the Nazi&#8217;s slave laborers in preparation for burial. (Photo by John Florea\/The LIFE Picture Collection \u00a9 Meredith Corporation)<\/p>\n        <\/div>\n    <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<blockquote id=\"single-block_5da7993286b4d\" class=\"single-image \">\n    <section>\n                        <img decoding=\"async\" data=\"block-image\" data-id=5355268 desc=\"Asset ID: 13051099. \" caption=\"Columnist Sidney Skolsky (L) catching a ride on Bob Hope&#039;s (R) bicycle on his way from his dressing room to the sound stage. (Photo by John Florea\/The LIFE Picture Collection &copy; Meredith Corporation)\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/static.life.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/16222721\/Hope_Bicycle_I-e1571264887490-1024x877.jpg\" alt=\"Columnist Sidney Skolsky (L) catching a ride on Bob Hope&#039;s (R) bicycle on his way from his dressing room to the sound stage. (Photo by John Florea\/The LIFE Picture Collection &copy; Meredith Corporation)\" \/>\n                <div class=\"image-info\">\n            <p class=\"image-caption\"><\/p>\n            <p class=\"image-caption\">Columnist Sidney Skolsky (L) catching a ride on Bob Hope&#8217;s (R) bicycle on his way from his dressing room to the sound stage. (Photo by John Florea\/The LIFE Picture Collection \u00a9 Meredith Corporation)<\/p>\n        <\/div>\n    <\/section>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The photographs of John Florea (1916-2000) ranged from fluffier than meringue to dark as death. He was in a darkroom on December 7,1941, developing photographs of actress Jane Russell, when he heard about Pearl Harbor. He decided then and there to take his career in a different direction, which led to the dreadful combat at &#8230; <a title=\"John Florea\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.life.com\/photographer\/john-florea\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":5355268,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5354282","photographer","type-photographer","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Photography of John Florea | LIFE<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn about John Florea, one of the many photographers for LIFE who captured some of the most iconic pictures from the US &amp; around the World.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.life.com\/photographer\/john-florea\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Photography of John Florea | LIFE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Learn about John Florea, one of the many photographers for LIFE who captured some of the most iconic pictures from the US &amp; around the World.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.life.com\/photographer\/john-florea\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"LIFE\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2019-10-16T22:33:18+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.life.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/16222721\/Hope_Bicycle_I-e1571264887490.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"877\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.life.com\/photographer\/john-florea\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.life.com\/photographer\/john-florea\/\",\"name\":\"The Photography of John Florea | LIFE\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.life.com\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.life.com\/photographer\/john-florea\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.life.com\/photographer\/john-florea\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.life.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/16222721\/Hope_Bicycle_I-e1571264887490.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-10-16T22:33:17+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2019-10-16T22:33:18+00:00\",\"description\":\"Learn about John Florea, one of the many photographers for LIFE who captured some of the most iconic pictures from the US & around the World.\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.life.com\/photographer\/john-florea\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.life.com\/photographer\/john-florea\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.life.com\/photographer\/john-florea\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/static.life.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/16222721\/Hope_Bicycle_I-e1571264887490.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.life.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/16222721\/Hope_Bicycle_I-e1571264887490.jpg\",\"width\":1024,\"height\":877,\"caption\":\"Columnist Sidney Skolsky (L) catching a ride on Bob Hope's (R) bicycle on his way from his dressing room to the sound stage. 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