“My Fascination with photography began in 1945. I was a young soldier in General Patton’s Third Army in Germany, an air-ground combat intelligence observer. As I was going through a German Army courier’s briefcase, looking for field orders and dispatches, I came upon a wooden cigar box containing a small Zeiss Tengor box camera with two rolls of unexposed film.

At that time, totally unaware of any “rules” of photography, I made the camera my own to record what I saw and to  convey as best I could what I felt as we pushed through the crumbling Third Reich to the Czech border.”

Livingstone was assigned as an Army criminal investigations agent in London and Paris in 1945 and 1946 where he was issued a more sophisticated 35 mm. camera to photograph surreptitiously GI black marketers breaking seals on Army freight cars and looting the contents.  On his off-duty days Livingstone walked the streets and boulevards of Paris recording on film the people going about their lives in the aftermath of years of war and German occupation.

Livingstone has always put first living subject matter – decisive moments photos – in the tradition of world-renowned French photographers Henri-Cartier Bresson, Robert Doisneau and Brassai.  John is a master of obtaining the best quality out of tiny 35mm and 120 negatives.

A Livingstone’s work was included in the international collection of the British Annual of Photography.  Prior to this new web gallery, John Livingstone’s photographs have available only in private collections and select galleries, including the Pentagon, the Smithsonian Institution and the Mozarteum in Salzburg Austria.