Flip Schulke

In his more than 60 years behind the lens, Flip Schulke photographed figures such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali, Jacques Cousteau, Fidel Castro, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Elvis Presley, and John F. Kennedy. He created more than 500,000 photographs -- 11,000 of those from the civil rights movement.

"I called him The Legend," said Donna Schulke, Mr. Schulke's fourth wife.

Schulke, 77, traveled all over -- bringing the world, and the sea, home with his camera. But age and poor health recently slowed the adventurer, and he died Thursday of congestive heart failure at Columbia Hospital.

During a fantastic freelance career, Schulke took hundreds of assignments from major magazines such as Life and National Geographic. But, Donna Schulke said, he would also work for the Boy Scouts Boys' Life magazine.

"The story was important to him and the person was important to him," Donna Schulke said. The couple divorced last week, but remained friends and neighbors.

For 15 years, Mr. Schulke made his home in West Palm Beach. His archives are also here, in an office on Village Boulevard.

The highlight of Mr. Schulke's career was covering Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement. He covered King for roughly 18 years, until King's assassination in 1968. Much of this work is documented in three books: Martin Luther King Jr.: A Documentary, Montgomery to Memphis (1976); King Remembered (1986); and He Had a Dream (1995).

"He saw so many changes, he always said he lived in the greatest time in modern history," Donna Schulke said.

Schulke's name was in the news the very day that he died. An artist in China defended his sculpture of King -- which is based on a Schulke photograph showing King with his arms crossed and his lips drawn.

Critics have said Lei Yixin's 28-foot statue depicts the civil rights leader as "too confrontational." It shows King emerging from a block of granite called the "Mountain of Despair. " It's part of a privately-funded $100 million memorial that opens next year in Washington.

In addition to news photography, Mr. Schulke was a groundbreaking underwater photographer. He disliked the distortions produced by wide-angle lenses and pioneered the dome ports that are now standard equipment in the industry. His book, Underwater Photography for Everyone (1976), was a must-read for underwater photographers for more than a decade.

"He had the ability to boil the essence of a story down to a visual image," said Gary Truman, Mr. Schulke's friend of more than 30 years. "He was one of the big guns of photojournalism."

Graeme Phelps Schulke was born June 24, 1930 in St. Paul, Minnesota. His love affair with photography began when he was 15, after he received a Kodak Brownie camera. He graduated in 1954 from Macalester College, a private, liberal arts college in St. Paul.

During the past few years, Truman had helped his friend transfer more than 9,000 images from film to digital. It was a massive project, conducted in the Village Boulevard office.

"He could see things other people couldn't see," Truman said. "And he knew how to get it on film."

Mr. Schulke received dozens of awards and accolades throughout his career, including the 1995 Crystal Eagle Award for Impact in Photojournalism, the First Annual New York State Martin Luther King Jr. Medal of Freedom in 1986, and the Golden Trident, from the government of Italy, for his accomplishments in underwater photography in 1983.

Mr. Schulke is survived by four children, Robin Chisolm-Seymour, Paul Schulke, Lisa Davidson, and Maria Cohen; his older sister Roxy Kaufmann, of Bermuda; and two stepsons Joe and John Toreno.

A memorial service is being planned, and will be held in New Ulm, Minnesota in the upcoming weeks.