Monday 26 April 2021

there’s just a big cock on the cover

Though reportedly not due to a printing error but rather a noble gesture not to obscure a photographic talent nor besmirch the dignity of the subject—we learn from our faithful chronicler, the only issue of LIFE magazine without the signature corner red-and-white logo (as with sister publication TIME) was on newsstands on this day in 1937. To do so, editors reasoned, would have spoiled the framing and composition of Torkel Kรถrling’s (*1903 – †1998, a prolific industrial and nature photographer who also invented the collapsing, portable tripod and the forerunner of the single-lens reflex camera) cover portrait of a splendid white leghorn rooster with a finely detailed cockscomb—the periodical being young still and not beyond the reproach of breeching a tradition.