Worldwide Local WRITTEN BY MEGIN POTTER PHOTOS BY DAVID FORBERT
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t a time when color photography was still rare, David Forbert traveled the world, capturing what he saw through his lens, and sharing it with millions. At age 12, Forbert won his first photography competition with a picture of a flower from his mother’s garden. He was 17 in World War II, volunteered with the Navy, was sent to a Pensacola, Florida photo school, and went on to the South Pacific. After being discharged, he continued his education before getting a job in 1947 that would change his life - working as a staff photographer with the best-selling consumer magazine, Reader’s Digest.
THE LIFE OF A TRAVEL PHOTOGRAPHER For the next 15 years, Forbert circled the globe, shooting more than 1,000 covers for Reader’s Digest’s 30 foreign editions.
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“I had to get so many pictures that I had to work fast. I was always looking for a picture everywhere I’d go. I went around the world, I don’t know how many times,” he said. Photography in the 1950’s was very different than it is today. Forbert lugged around so much stuff that customs often stopped him to investigate. Using a Linhof 4x5” camera and Ektachrome film, he’d travel with thousands of flashbulbs and spend his days viewing tiny images upside-down under a focusing cloth. “The film speed was the worst thing. (ASA 10, compared to today 1000’s roll.) You cannot move or shoot candidly. You had to have people be absolutely still because it was such a long exposure,” he said.
SPRING 2020 | SIMPLY SARATOGA | 27
