What A Life! Casper’s Dean Conger Spent A long time As Top National Geographic Photographer

CASPER — Dean Conger fueled airplanes as teen, frolicked of airplane home windows to seize information photographs within the West in his 20s, after which labored for National Geographic till retirement.

Along the best way, he captured a few of the most historic and vital moments of the instances, equivalent to certainly one of astronaut John Glenn with President John F. Kennedy.

The Casper native’s curiosity in life by a lens started early with a Kodak Brownie digital camera as a boy. 

He would graduate to Leica Rangefinder Finder cameras as a newspaper photojournalist, after which Nikon 35mm gear utilizing Kodachrome and Ektachrome slide movie for the National Geographic Society.

Following his loss of life on Sept. 7, 2023, the award-winning photojournalist left his profession’s work of 100,000 unedited 35mm slides with center son and his spouse, Kurt and Robyn Conger of The Dalles, Oregon. 

They are nonetheless determining how others may benefit from the large trove of photos.

“He took up photography very early on,” Kurt Conger mentioned. “He was taking pictures in high school.”

The Casper-Star Tribune on Jan. 23, 1982, in a narrative on Dean Conger’s prestigious profession quoted Conger a couple of pal who invited him right into a darkroom at age 10, which spurred him to his personal experimentation with a field digital camera owned by his mom.

Wyoming Beginnings

Dean Conger was born on Aug. 26, 1927, in Casper to Cecil and Bernice Conger. 

During the battle years previous to his commencement from Natrona County High School in 1945, he labored part-time for the Casper Tribune-Herald.

Kurt mentioned his father additionally bought a job fueling airplanes on the airport.

“He eventually figured out how to get a pilot’s license through that experience,” he mentioned.

Drafted into the U.S. Army in 1945, Conger’s eyesight was flagged, however he spent greater than a 12 months within the service because the battle wound down, changing into a sergeant and dealing in darkrooms processing photographs after which X-rays, in addition to educating others learn how to do it.

After his discharge, he attended Casper College after which the University of Wyoming, graduating with a Bachelor of Science diploma in 1950. 

Throughout all of it he saved taking photographs freelancing for The Denver Post.

His photograph of an Afton, Wyoming-built Call-Air plane with skis made the duvet of Flying Magazine in January 1950.

Then The Call From National Geographic

In 1951, he was working for The Denver Post and coated the downing of a United Airlines Mainliner that crashed into Crystal Mountain 18 miles west of Fort Collins, Colorado, from the air.

“I flew over the area and shot pictures for about a half an hour,” he mentioned in a narrative reprinted within the Casper Tribune-Herald on July 1, 1951. “It looked like somebody busted a big bag of peanuts on the side of the mountain.

While Dean did not pilot the plane that captured those photos, his son said he often flew his own plane and took photos out a window as he covered certain news assignments.

Dean and his wife, Leona Moore, were married on Aug. 14, 1953. 

Their first son, Eric, was born and they had just finished building a house in Arvada, Colorado, in 1959 when something very unexpected occurred, Kurt said.

National Geographic called, offering him a job.

Robyn Conger said her conversations with Leona about that decision would always bring her mother-in-law’s voice to a near whisper of reverence.

“She said the day that the National Geographic call was really a big day in their life,” Robyn Conger recalled. “That’s not something you say ‘no’ to.”

And so, the 32-year-old Dean Conger flew to Washington, D.C., to start a profession that might take him to retirement in 1989. 

His spouse was tasked with getting the home offered and making a transfer throughout the nation to Maryland as he began touring the United States and the world.

During the primary a part of his profession with National Geographic, two extra sons can be born — Kurt and youthful brother, Chris. 

Dean Conger’s passports began to multiply, and Kurt Conger mentioned his assignments would take him from his household for almost 9 months out of the 12 months.

The photographer saved a darkroom in his home, and he taught his sons as they grew up learn how to develop movie and body {a photograph}.

On The Go

Early assignments for National Geographic in Dean Conger’s first passport present journeys to Bulgaria, France, and Cyprus, mentioned his son.

From Feb. 27 to March 7, 1960, he accompanied President Dwight D. Eisenhower on a South American tour that took him to Brazil, Chile, Argentina and Uruguay. 

Kurt and Robyn Conger inherited memento water glasses which can be stamped with particulars of the journey.

“We have a very cool photograph of Dean taking a picture of President Eisenhower, who is holding one of Dean’s cameras pointed at Dean,” Robyn Conger mentioned. “They’re probably on Air Force One.”

In the early Sixties, Dean Conger was assigned to NASA and coated the Mercury area program astronauts because the nation raced to meet up with the Soviet Union’s exploits. 

During that point he captured an iconic photograph of John Glenn using in a limousine with President John F. Kennedy following Glenn’s historic orbit of the Earth.

Dean Conger’s photograph of a helicopter hauling up astronaut Alan Shepard made the duvet of Life Magazine on May 12, 1961. 

Shepard penned be aware on a poster of the duvet devoted to his photographer: “To Dean Conger, who helped in making ‘Life’,” he wrote on May 5, 1961.

In the Sixties and Seventies, the Casper native was despatched on a number of assignments to Russia. 

He additionally was in Thailand through the Vietnam War and would spend time chronicling an evolving China because it headed towards the superpower it has now change into.

Soviet Trips

While he visited the previous Soviet Union quite a few instances, that nation was most likely not certainly one of his favourite locations to go to, Kurt Conger mentioned. 

But in 1977, these 40 or so assignments resulted in a guide revealed by The National Geographic Society known as “Journey Across Russia: The Soviet Union Today.”

One of his favourite locations might have been China, mentioned his son, including that his dad and mom after Dean’s retirement would go to the nation in addition to Vietnam as vacationers.

“I think he found travel was always interesting,” Kurt Conger mentioned. “As long as you know, the subject he covered was cooperative … and the weather had to be right. It could be frustrating.”

Assignments for the journal usually concerned National Geographic analysis workers telling him what pictures they needed and sending him to numerous deliberate occasions. 

Sometimes, nevertheless, these occasions had been canceled or the climate difficult pictures. The photographer needed to be affected person and versatile.

Awards

Kurt mentioned his father was an outgoing particular person for many of his life. 

On assignments, he wrote letters house, and when his sons had been of their teenagers, he turned an assistant director of pictures on the journal. 

That allowed him to be at their Maryland house for six months of the 12 months and 6 months within the subject.

Dean Conger was revered by this colleagues and earned a number of awards throughout his profession, together with Newspaper Photographer of the Year thrice within the Nineteen Fifties, Magazine Photographer of the Year in 1962 and the National Press Photographers Association Joseph A. Sprague Memorial Award for lifetime achievement in 1987.

He was additionally honored with distinguished alumni awards by each Casper College and the University of Wyoming.

Western Ties

While rising up, Kurt mentioned he, his brothers and their mother would go to Casper to spend time with Dean Conger’s dad and mom as he was on task abroad.

The Congers favored the West, which is why after retirement they moved to Durango, Colorado.

During the early years of his profession as a newspaper photographer, Dean Conger actually loved being assigned to cowl rodeos, and received awards with these images, Kurt Conger mentioned.

The elder Conger had a darkroom in his house in Maryland throughout his National Geographic profession and following retirement to Durango in 1992 constructed one in his home there — simply because the pictures world turned digital.

He most likely by no means used that darkroom and completely embraced the brand new know-how, his son mentioned.

“He always said that, ‘I was born 40 years too soon,’” Kurt Conger mentioned. “He was just amazed at what the digital photography could do.”

While his dad turned proficient at utilizing Adobe Photoshop, the final decade of his life he developed macular degeneration in his eyes and finally had to surrender on the occupation and passion that introduced him a residing, the awards, and a lifetime of enjoyment.

Robyn Conger mentioned she first met her father-in-law 20 years in the past and characterised him as somebody who remained sharp of thoughts till the top of his life. 

The couple helped each dad and mom after they moved to Oregon to be nearer. As he lay dying, she mentioned she remembers Dean Conger saying one thing very poignant.

“On his deathbed he told us, ‘I’ve had a great life, I’ve had a great family, and I have absolutely no regrets in what I’ve done,’” Robyn Conger mentioned. “So, I think that said a lot about him and everything he had done in his life.”

Dale Killingbeck could be reached at dale@cowboystatedaily.com.