John L. Gaunt (June 4, 1924 in

Syracuse, New York Syracuse ( ) is a City (New York), city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, Onondaga County, New York, United States. It is the fifth-most populous city in the state of New York following New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffa ...

– October 26, 2007 in Desert Hot Springs, California) was an American photographer. He won the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for Photography. Born as the only child to a stockbroker, Gaunt moved and grew up in Hermosa Beach, California. Growing up with his future wife, Mary Elise, he graduated from Redondo Union High School. He served in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II. He studied at

Compton College Compton College is a public community college in Compton, California. From 2006, when it lost its regional accreditation, to 2017, when it regained that accreditation, it operated as a part of El Camino College. Before and after the partnership ...

and graduated from University of Southern California with a degree in zoology. Gaunt married Mary Elise in the late 1940s, and the two had two daughters: Jane and Abigail. He worked for the '' Los Angeles Times'' from October 1950 to 1988. His 1955 award-winning photo entitled "Tragedy by the Sea" depicted the morning of 2 April 1954 when his neighbors, young Hermosa couple John and Lillian McDonald, stood together beside a violent sea that had just taken their infant son, Michael, away. The photo made the front page of the ''Los Angeles Times'' the following morning. As well as the Pulitzer, the photograph won an Associated Press Managing Editor's Award, and a prize from the California-Nevada Associated Press.

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* 20th-century American photographers Pulitzer Prize for Photography winners People from Desert Hot Springs, California People from Hermosa Beach, California Artists from Syracuse, New York 1924 births 2007 deaths Journalists from California Journalists from New York (state) 20th-century American journalists American male journalists United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II University of Southern California alumni Photographers from New York (state) Photographers from California American photojournalists {{US-photographer-stub