Ed Roseberry took his first photograph under San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge as he headed out to the South Pacific with the U.S. Navy to serve in the Second World War. It was the start of a long photography career for the Virginia native, who died yesterday at age 97. Roseberry spent decades photographing 20th-century life in Charlottesville and at the University of Virginia. According to UVA Magazine, some of his first assignments were for UVA’s Corks & Curls yearbook when he was a commerce student at the University (he graduated in 1949). His photographs appeared in the Daily Progress, the Associated Press, multiple exhibitions, and books.
“The most memorable shoots were done spontaneously, without my being aware that the event was going to happen,” he said in a 2012 podcast. Roseberry captured some of the first undergraduate women on Grounds in 1970; notable visitors to the University, including the Dalai Lama, Elizabeth Taylor, and Queen Elizabeth II; and early aerial photographs of the Academical Village, taking his camera up in a small plane flown by his younger brother. “I was willing to try anything,” Roseberry said in 2012. “I didn’t always succeed the first time around, but experience garners results, so I kept plugging at it.”
Take a look below at some of Roseberry’s vibrant photographs collected and curated by UVA Library.
For additional Roseberry photographs, check out this photo essay by UVA Magazine.