Béla Kalman was born in Hungary and emigrated to the United States during the 1956 uprising. In addition to his career in advertising photography, Kalman’s highly acclaimed work is represented in numerous museum collections and has appeared in many magazines, exhibits, and books including Angkor, Indian Country with Tony Hillerman, The Third Eye, Flowers, Rare Orchids and Succulents. Seashells is Mr. Kalman’s 8th book. In 1984 , he was appointed as a lifetime Master of the Federation of International Artistic Photographers. Of the twenty-five photographers in the world who hold this title, Kalman is the only American. He lives with his wife in Boston and on Cape Cod.
His work is included in the permanent collections of 18 museums.
Mr. Kalman explained that his magic behind the camera was to look through the lens with his fabled “third eye’’ - “The Third Eye’’ is the title of one of his many books - and capture the essence of whatever he was shooting, portraits, street scenes, farm workers, the temples of Angkor in Cambodia, seashells, and flowers, all breathtaking enough to hang in museums and galleries. He even transformed an onion into a thing of beauty.
His third eye, an intuitive inner lens “enabled him to visualize compositions before framing them in his viewfinder,’’ said his stepson, Eric Zimberg of San Diego.
Mr. Kalman, a photographer for more than 55 years who formerly owned and ran Studio 350 on Newbury Street in Boston, died June 26 at Cape Cod Hospital in Hyannis of lung and cardiac complications. He was 89 and looking forward to his 90th birthday on July 29, 2011