George Rodger was the first photographer to enter the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp in April 1945. In May he photographed the German surrender at Lüneburg for TIME and LIFE magazines. Traumatized by the experience of looking for ‘nice compositions’ in front of the dead, Rodger embarked on a 28,000-mile journey all over Africa and the Middle East, focusing on animal life, rituals, and ways of life that exist in a close relationship with nature.
This contact sheet features a gathering of the Nuba tribe in the Korongo Jebels mountains, taken by George Rodger in Kordofan, Sudan, 1949. Featuring traditional festival and customs of the Nuba, including wrestling and spear fighting. One of Rodger’s widely known photographs of a Nuba wrestler is shown, hoisted and resting onto another tribe members’ shoulders after winning a match.
In 1947 Rodger was invited to join Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, David Seymour and William Vandivert in founding Magnum Photos.
