Carroll Seghers II (May 28, 1924 – April 17, 2004) was an American photographer, who as a leading member of the creative photo revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, helped produce advertising for brands like

Texaco Texaco, Inc. ("The Texas Company") is an American Petroleum, oil brand owned and operated by Chevron Corporation. Its flagship product is its Gasoline, fuel "Texaco with Techron". It also owned the Havoline motor oil brand. Texaco was an Indepe ...

Marlboro Marlboro (, ) is an American brand of cigarettes, currently owned and manufactured by Philip Morris USA (a branch of Altria) within the United States and by Philip Morris International (now separate from Altria) outside the US. The largest Marl ...

American Express American Express Company (Amex) is an American multinational corporation specialized in payment card services headquartered at 200 Vesey Street in the Battery Park City neighborhood of Lower Manhattan in New York City. The company was found ...

Chrysler Stellantis North America (officially FCA US and formerly Chrysler ()) is one of the " Big Three" automobile manufacturers in the United States, headquartered in Auburn Hills, Michigan. It is the American subsidiary of the multinational automoti ...

United Airlines United Airlines, Inc. (commonly referred to as United), is a major American airline headquartered at the Willis Tower in Chicago, Illinois.

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a carbonated soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. Originally marketed as a temperance drink and intended as a patent medicine, it was invented in the late 19th century by John Stith Pemberton in Atlanta ...

and

Kodak The Eastman Kodak Company (referred to simply as Kodak ) is an American public company that produces various products related to its historic basis in analogue photography. The company is headquartered in Rochester, New York, and is incorpor ...

, among many others. Seghers spent almost four decades in advertising, winning several Clio Awards, as well as being a featured contributor to

Life Magazine ''Life'' was an American magazine published weekly from 1883 to 1972, as an intermittent "special" until 1978, and as a monthly from 1978 until 2000. During its golden age from 1936 to 1972, ''Life'' was a wide-ranging weekly general-interest ma ...

. Selected works are also included in the Permanent Collection of the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

in New York City. He rose to prominence by winning both the First Prize for Individual Pictures, as well as Second Honorable Mention in the Photo Story category of Life Magazine's Photo Contest for Young Professionals in 1951 for his photos of black religious spiritualism. His work submitted beat photographer

Robert Frank Robert Frank (November 9, 1924 – September 9, 2019) was a Swiss photographer and documentary filmmaker, who became an American binational. His most notable work, the 1958 book titled ''The Americans'', earned Frank comparisons to a modern-da ...

for First Prize.

Early life

Carroll Seghers II was born in

Cincinnati, Ohio Cincinnati ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Hamilton County. Settled in 1788, the city is located at the northern side of the confluence of the Licking and Ohio rivers, the latter of which marks the state line wit ...

, and moved with his parents to

Coral Gables, Florida Coral Gables, officially City of Coral Gables, is a city in Miami-Dade County, Florida. The city is located southwest of Downtown Miami. As of the 2020 U.S. census, it had a population of 49,248. Coral Gables is known globally as home to the ...

when young. As a pilot and flight instructor during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, Seghers was stationed in

Columbus, Mississippi Columbus is a city in and the county seat of Lowndes County, on the eastern border of Mississippi, United States, located primarily east, but also north and northeast of the Tombigbee River, which is also part of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterwa ...

and Sheppard Field in

Wichita Falls, Texas Wichita Falls ( ) is a city in and the seat of government of Wichita County, Texas, United States. It is the principal city of the Wichita Falls Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Archer, Clay, and Wichita counties. Accordin ...

, where he was one of the first 19 helicopter pilots in the

Army Air Forces The United States Army Air Forces (USAAF or AAF) was the major land-based aerial warfare service component of the United States Army and ''de facto'' aerial warfare service branch of the United States during and immediately after World War II ...

. His photographic talent was first discovered while on his honeymoon in Europe, when he snapped a picture of the street capture of a famous thief by French police, which was immediately solicited by newspaper and wire services. It was an experience that transformed him forever. It was on this honeymoon where he formed a friendship with fellow photographer

Ernst Haas Ernst Haas (March 2, 1921 – September 12, 1986) was an Austrian-American photojournalist and color photographer. During his 40-year career, Haas bridged the gap between photojournalism and the use of photography as a medium for expression an ...

Books published

In 1960, he co-produced a picture book on Colonial Williamsburg, titled, "Adventure in Williamsburg". In 1979, he wrote and photographed the subjects for a book on women mountain climbers, titled "The Peak Experience (Hiking and Climbing for Women)", published by Bobbs-Merrill Inc.

Selected awards

* First Prize for Individual Pictures, Life Magazine, 1951 * Second Honorable Mention for Photo Story Category, Life Magazine, 1951 * Best of Series, First Place Awards, Missouri School of Journalism, 1955

Other notable work

He shot the cast of the TV show ''

I've Got a Secret ''I've Got a Secret'' is an American panel game show produced by Mark Goodson and Bill Todman for CBS television. Created by comedy writers Allan Sherman and Howard Merrill, it was a derivative of Goodson-Todman's own panel show, ''What's My Line ...

'' for the cover of TV Guide Magazine in 1963.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Seghers, Carroll 1924 births 2004 deaths 20th-century American photographers People from Cincinnati People from Coral Gables, Florida United States Army Air Forces pilots of World War II