Ted Streshinsky, 80; Photojournalist Created Essays of 1960s Turmoil

Ted Streshinsky, 80, a photojournalist whose camera captured Cesar Chavez and his United Farm Workers, the Black Panthers, Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters, four U.S. presidents and images around the world, died Thursday.

He died of complications following lung surgery at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center in Richmond, Calif.

Born in China to Russian parents, Streshinsky attended St. John’s University in Shanghai during World War II, and later earned a bachelor’s in journalism and a master’s in political science at UC Berkeley.

Working with such writers as Tom Wolfe and Joan Didion, he created photo essays about the turmoil of the 1960s for Life, Look, Time, the Saturday Evening Post and Smithsonian magazines. His photos of grape fields were used as a background for the U.S. postal stamp of Chavez.

Working with his wife, writer Shirley Streshinsky, the photographer also completed travel assignments in Burma, China, France, Hawaii, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Singapore, Spain and Vietnam. Streshinsky illustrated seven books, including “California Wine,” “Rivers of the West” and “Beautiful California.”

In 1989, he founded Photo 20-20, a stock photo agency that distributed pictures to magazines and advertising agencies around the world. The company merged with Lonely Planet Images in 2001. At the time of his death, Streshinsky was working to create the Pacific Center for Photographic Arts in Emeryville, Calif.