Former Life magazine photographer Yale Joel recently died of cardiac arrest in New York City at the age of 87.

Joel began his photographic career in 1938, when he was 19 years old, going on to serve as a combat photographer for the Army Signal Corps in World War II. He joined the original Life staff in 1947, working at various times through the magazine's Paris, Washington, Boston and New York offices.

During the next decade, he twice won the...