Фено Джейкобс: Фотограф және өмір жолы

Charles Fenno Jacobs (December 14, 1904 – June 27, 1974; often credited as Fenno Jacobs) was an American photographer active in the mid 20th century.

Jacobs was born in Waltham, Massachusetts. His Dutch descended father was a steamfitter. An enfant terrible extraordinaire, he did not graduate from high school and rumor has it he dropped out or was expelled in 8th grade. In spite of this, he got an education on the fly, read a great deal of contemporary literature, met almost everyone of the period worth knowing and was a fine journalistic writer. His older sister Frances reports that he was the red headed scourge of the neighborhood as a child.

Reaching his majority, he joined the Merchant Marines and traveled the world for a period of years. After leaving the Merchant Marines, he moved to New York where he married his first wife, Kit, and began his career as a photographer by taking pictures for a commercial real estate firm. With his first 35mm camera, he also began taking candid shots of New Yorkers and of New York and began going to magazine offices, offering to work for practically nothing, according to his third wife, Gloria, who was at the time of their meeting a researcher for Fortune magazine. His particular talent was in catching his subjects at their most revealing moments. He became a photographer for Time, Inc. and was soon traveling as a photographer throughout South America as well as the United States, taking pictures for Life, National Geographic, U. S. Camera, and Fortune. Some of his more memorable photos were of the Mexico City flower market and agave fields in Mexico, a Bolivian toddler on the back of her mother, with one large black eye fixed on the photographer, and a down at heels banana dictator in a gilt braided uniform. His color covers for Fortune were always striking. He married his second wife, Marjorie Kent, in New York in 1941 and together they had two daughters, Shelley Isom and Kathe Stolz.

"Power in the Pacific", a group exhibition of the Steichen unit, was held at the Museum of Modern Art in January 1945. Since then Jacobs' work has appeared in several major shows and the 1981 book Steichen at War.

In later life, Jacobs opened two restaurants, one on Maryland's Eastern Shore—grudgingly frying up hamburgers when obliged to instead of his wonderful soft shelled crabs with smithfield ham or chicken à la Maryland—and one in Marlboro, Vermont, where he fed, among others, the members of the Budapest Quartet and pianist Rudolf Serkin. A glowing review in The New York Times by Craig Claiborne provided him with customers for a summer. Later he became an editor for a yachting magazine named Skipper based in Annapolis, Maryland, whose chief editor was Victor Jorgensen, fellow Navy photographer and longtime friend. A lover of yachting who once took his first wife down the Mississippi River, Jacobs bought a beautiful Old Matthews 42 foot yacht on which he traveled down the inland waterway to Florida. He lived on the boat several years with his third wife, Gloria. They were divorced but remained close friends for the rest of their lives. Jacobs continued to take photographs through the early 1970s, combining his interests in travel and boating. He eventually and reluctantly retired and he died suddenly in Englewood, New Jersey, with his then partner, Helen Herbstman.