Mell Kilpatrick Update Photographer of Automobile Crashes and Inventor of the Dashboard Camera (UPDATE)

Mell Kilpatrick Untitled (Automobile Crash Scene) collection Jim Linderman

Pleasant words have come from the Mell Kilpatrick website HERE regarding the photographer I have come to think of as the Weegee of the West.  He did more than photograph automobile crashes, but the dashboard camera he invented to make it possible marks him one of the most important photographers of the 20th century.  I'm happy to link to the Mell Kilpatrick site for them, and continue to prize mine as well.   Mell has a good story, and I am all about good stories. I have a dozen or so…a few are inside shots of what must be crime scenes…clothes strewn about and one of a broken safe…but it was the crashes which should make one think.  And not text while doing it behind the wheel. 

My previous posts on the hard-working artist are HERE and HERE.  

Photography Books and eBooks by Jim Linderman are available HERE

Crime Scene Drop Zone Tossed in Haste and a True Crime Pulp Staple

Hard-boiled visual aids here, a collaboration between photographer, graphic artist and perp. Give me twelve straights, an easel, and we've got this one sewed up.

Bunny Yeager Lovely Lass with Lens 36-25-37 Heroes of Photography #1

Linnea Eleanor "Bunny" Yeager is a pioneer woman photographer whose work you know but don't. Those in the art world may be tempted by pass her by as she worked in the pin-up business. That's right, a woman taking pictures of women for men...and in the 1950s no less. Yeager took some shots of a personal, patronizing kind as well: she was named "Prettiest Photographer in the World" by US Camera Magazine in 1953. (With competition from fellows like Weegee, I'm not quite sure how much of an honor this is) Likely the only professional photographer who has had her measurements reported by Celebrity Sleuth, she was also named one of the top ten women "Photographers of the Year" in 1959 by the Professional Photographers of America and has lived long enough to see her work exhibited in a retrospective at the Andy Warhol Museum last year.

Not only did Bunny photograph pin-ups for Playboy (and countless other men's magazines) she was a model herself. Born in Pennsylvania, Bunny moved to Florida and soon became one of the most in-demand models on the beach. No less than Joltin' Joe Di Maggio, himself a fine judge of female talent, crowned her "Miami Sports Queen" in 1949. But Bunny had artistic aims and brains along with her beauty and began taking pictures of her fellow models, many of whom posed for free to help her out. She reportedly had an additional advantage...some of the more modest models had no difficulty shedding ALL their clothes for a woman, and much of her early work was nudes rather than the "nearly nudes." made by her male competition. Her empathy and collaboration with the models helped her create stupendous glamor. One of her first works became a cover for Eye Magazine. A few years later she photographed vacationing Bettie Page and sent the pictures to Hugh Hefner. One became the centerfold and Bettie became Playmate of the Month in January 1955. She later took the famous beach photos of Ursula Andress used for the James Bond film Dr. No. She liked Hollywood...much of her work was for the industry even if her credits read like a "B Movie" festival. Bunny is still doing still work from what I can tell.
by Jim Linderman

Uncredited Photographs published in "Scamp" magazine 1957