Charles Steinheimer reading a copy of American Photography. (Photo by Iro Harper/The LIFE Images Collection)
During the Depression, a psychology degree, even from Stanford, was of little value, so Charles Steinheimer (1914-1996) and his friend Hart Preston went down to Mexico to take pictures. LIFE ran a long feature based on their work and immediately hired both of them. But, in the end, Steinheimer’s education paid off. “If you take good pictures of people, you take pictures of their involuntary musculature,” he explained. “My early psychology training ied me to investigate the voluntary and involuntary muscular structure of the body. It’s so apparent, if you look for it. Genuine emotions are expressed … I spot a posed picture every time.” Eventually he wearied of photography, believing his style revealed so much that it invaded his subjects’ privacy and, further, that all the traveling strained his personal relationships. Later, as an electronics engineer, Steinheimer helped develop the video camera.
—Adapted from The Great LIFE Photographers
At the Leipzig Industrial Fair in East Germany, envious kids peer into a car and shout “From America! Look!” (Photo by Charles Steinheimer/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)
Children watching cartoons in a movie theater. (Photo by Charles Steinheimer/The LIFE Picture Collection © Meredith Corporation)
