Internationally known photo-journalist Horace Bristol is noted for his poignant images of Depression-era Americans, his graphic depiction of World War II naval scenes and his views of post-war Asians, from rice farmers and pearl divers to royalty and military leaders.

During the 1930’s, Bristol worked in San Francisco with such photographic luminaries as Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Imogene Cunningham and Dorthea Lange before being hired as one of the original staff photographers for LIFE magazine.

Perhaps Bristol’s most famous photographs are those taken when he was accompanied by John Steinbeck in California’s Central Valley. Envisioning a book project and a photo essay for Life magazine about Oklahoma farmers driven from the Dustbowl to work as migrant labor in California, Bristol asked Steinbeck to accompany him to write the text for this piece. However, after several week-ends of traveling amongst the workers and getting their stories in words and pictures, Steinbeck informed Bristol that the material was so strong he intended on using it for a novel. "Grapes of Wrath" was born. The photo essay book died, but Bristol’s photographs of the workers, a few of which made it into Life and Fortune magazine, were used years later when the studio was casting for the film version of "The Grapes of Wrath."

In 1942, legendary photographer Edward Steichen invited Bristol to join an elite group of seven professional photographers, known formally as the Naval Aviation Photographic Unit, but informally as "Steichen’s Chickens" because of their leader’s mother hen tendencies. As a part of this unique and unorthodox team Bristol photographed men and airplanes of the United States Navy aircraft carriers in the Pacific as well as several naval ventures in the Atlantic.

Immediately following the war, Bristol became Fortune magazine’s Asian corres-pondent and later opened a freelance business in Tokyo. During this time he was the only photographer to record Prince Shianouk of Cambodia’s coronation, lived for several months with President Sukarno of Indonesia and photographed Chang Kai-Shek and his army in exile on Taiwan.

Horace Bristol retired from photography in 1956 and his work was not rediscovered until the mid-1980’s. A career retrospective of his work, curated by the Sespe Group, occurred in his old home town at the Santa Paula Union Oil Museum in the exhibit "Welcome Home Horace Bristol" and previously at the Ventura County Museum of History and Art in the exhibit entitled "World War II: The Camera Remembers."

Horace Bristol was a resident of Ojai.