Researching Ralph Morse

During his thirty years at Life, Morse covered assignments including science, theater, fads and spot news. When first hired by Life and sent to photograph World War II, he was the youngest war correspondent. His pictures documented the war's Pacific and European theatres and the post-war reconstruction of Europe. Morse was the civilian photographer at the signing of the surrender by the Germans to General Dwight Eisenhower. He was the senior staff photographer at the time when Life ceased weekly publication.

Morse photographed the NASA space program from its inception, an assignment which outlasted Life as a weekly magazine. On November 6, 2009 LIFE.com unveiled a photo retrospective of Project Mercury, America's first human spaceflight program. Most of this photo collection is credited to Morse, as he had been exclusively assigned by Life to cover the space program. Over the early decades of the space program, Morse became an insider at NASA, providing him with the privileged access which helped produce some of the most iconic images of NASA projects. On July 15, 2009, LIFE.com published a photo gallery of never-before-seen photos Morse took of Buzz Aldrin, Michael Collins, and Neil Armstrong in the days before their Apollo mission. In the gallery, Morse talks with Life about Apollo 11 and the astronauts who first landed on the moon.

Morse believed that photos lend a unique understanding to the world in which we live. Photographer Jim McNitt, who worked with Morse on several Time magazine assignments in the 1970s, described him as a fun-loving extrovert who was delighted to mentor an aspiring photojournalist. "Watching Ralph plan his shots, respond to editors, and deal with reluctant subjects with off-hand humor taught me things I couldn't learn in photo magazines or workshops," said McNitt. Former Life managing editor George P. Hunt proclaimed of Morse, "If Life could afford only one photographer, it would have to be Ralph Morse."