Sam Shere

Sam Shere was an American news photographer remembered for capturing one of the most dramatic disaster images ever taken. Born in 1904, he worked for years as a hard-charging press photographer covering the major stories of his day. In 1937 he was waiting to photograph the arrival of the German airship Hindenburg in New Jersey when it suddenly burst into flames.

With only seconds to react, he snapped a photograph of the giant zeppelin engulfed in fire as it fell, an image that ran around the world and became the defining picture of the catastrophe. He later said he had no time even to raise the camera to his eye. Shere's split-second photograph remains one of the most famous news images in history.