| Original caption: “As spring sloshed belatedly into war-battered Poland last week an itinerant photographer was making the best of a bad situation. He posed his subjects against a movable screen that showed a sharply towered castle and a pretty forest of prewar vintage. A visiting American photographer, touched by the pathos of a people trying to avoid the depressing reality of their bombed-out cities, took this picture as the street photographer posed his subject and pleaded, ‘Look pleasant, please.’” This street photographer was a popular subject for Polish and foreign news photographers in Warsaw in 1947. Besides Michael Nash (August 6, 1919 – August 3, 1989), who made this iconic image that appeared in the April 7, 1947, of LIFE Magazine, He was photographed by Julien Bryan (May 23, 1899 – October 20, 1974), who had famously photographed the Nazi German onslaught in September 1939 and returned in 1946 as the photographer with the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) delegation; his photos are in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Czech photographer Jindřich Marco (May 10, 1921 – December 20, 2000), who had been interned by the Nazi Germans in October 1944, was hired by Česká Tisková Kancelář (ČTK – “Czech News Agency”) to photograph the Warsaw War Crimes Trials in March 1947 and published his photos in his book, Please Buy My New Song. The Swiss Ambassador to Poland, Anton Roy Ganz (April 25, 1903 – December 16, 1993) amassed a sizable photograph collection that his family donated to Muzeum Polskie w Rapperswilu. Polish Army photographer Edward Falkowski (June 25, 1913 – April 16, 1998), and founder of the Związek Polskich Artystów Fotografików (“Association of Polish Art Photographers”) famous in Poland for his photos of the ruins of Warsaw. All of them found this street photographer; Nash composed the most striking image, with the destroyed building in the background. The street photographer remains unidentified. Besides this image of Warsaw, Nash made another iconic image of a V-1 rocket falling on London. Joining Associated Press in 1942, he served as a war correspondent. He was decorated by Tunisian President Habib Bourguiba (August 3, 1903 – April 6, 2000) in 1953 for photographing the country’s struggle for independence. He ran the Associated Press office in Paris after the war and the City of Paris awarded him the Vermeil Medal when he retired in 1985 after 44 years of service. He died of cancer 4 years later. | |
| Image Filename | wwii0790.jpg |
| Image Size | 681.79 KB |
| Image Dimensions | 2464 x 3170 |
| Photographer | |
| Photographer Title | |
| Caption Author | Written or Adapted by Jason McDonald |
| Date Photographed | November 1, 1946 |
| Location | |
| City | Warsaw |
| State or Province | Warsaw |
| Country | Poland |
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| Record Number | |
| Status | Caption ©2026 MFA Productions LLC Please Do Not Duplicate or Distribute Without Permission; Image in the Public Domain |
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