The Man Who Sold Nikon To The World

The legendary David Douglas Duncan championed Nikon equipment among his press photographer peers. Steve Fairclough tells how a brief encounter had major repercussions for Nikon....

In 1950 the 34-year-old David Douglas Duncan (aka ‘DDD’) was firmly established as a respected Life magazine staff photographer. The former US Marine Corps combat photographer, who had won a Purple Heart amongst other medals, was employed as a Life staffer just one month after his honourable discharge from the Marines in 1946. Life magazine’s chief photographer, J R Eyerman, campaigned for DDD to be taken on after spotting his photographic talent. After a meeting in New York with the publication’s photo editor Wilson Hicks (which Duncan attended in his Marines uniform) Duncan was sent on assignment to Iran just three days later.

In the summer of 1950 Duncan was in Japan to take pictures of traditional Japanese arts. While he was there his assistant was Jun Miki, a young photographer working as a ‘stringer’ for Life. One evening Jun Miki took a portrait of Duncan with a Nikkor 85mm f/2 lens mounted on a Leica IIIf camera body. This candid shot turned out to be one of the most important photographs in the history of Nikon and the wider Japanese photographic industry.

‘There’s no light’

‘In 1950 I was in Tokyo,’ David Douglas Duncan recalls. ‘Jun Miki, who was photographing for Life, came into the office and said, “Dave-san, may I photograph you?” It was late evening and I heard a “chak” – one shot. I said “Jun, you’re wasting your time; there’s no light”.’

The next morning Duncan was shown an 8x10inch print of the portrait and was astonished at the sharpness and quality. He explains, ‘[It was a] perfect shot! I said, “May I see your camera? What’s this?”’