Legendary war photographer Al Rockoff — who was immortalized in the classic movie The Killing Fields — has claimed that his historic negatives were taken from him against his will in a bitter dispute.
According to a recent report by The New York Times, the disagreement over Rockoff’s negatives centers on whether two men who had been helping the 77-year-old photographer and organizing his belongings allegedly removed his archive with his consent — or whether those negatives were taken without proper permission.
Rockoff was a U.S. Army photographer in Vietnam and later a freelancer in Cambodia, spending years documenting the devastation of war across Southeast Asia. On April 17, 1975, he was among the few journalists to capture the fall of Phnom Penh as the Khmer Rouge entered the city. Actor John Malkovich later portrayed Rockoff in the 1984 film The Killing Fields, widely regarded today as one of the greatest films made about journalism and conflict.
‘He Didn’t Want to Make Money Off That Misery’
Rockoff became known for his stark, grisly images that conveyed the brutality of war. He has never heavily commercialized those pictures or the many he shot during repeated returns to Cambodia in the 1990s. In 2000, he held a rare print sale in Phnom Penh but otherwise kept his work largely out of the market.
“I am more interested in my pictures than people’s admiration,” he tells The New York Times when asked about selling or exhibiting his work. “I am not winning a popularity contest.”
“He didn’t want to make money off that misery [of his war photographs],” says Victory Bornas, his ex-wife, who has long acted as a caretaker.
Friends say Rockoff has long resisted outside help in managing or promoting his archive. A publisher once expressed interest in producing a book of his work, but he declined, insisting on full control. He has often said he wants to publish a book on his own terms before he dies — a project he still hopes to complete.
Doing so would require access to the thousands of negatives and slides he kept in plastic cases in his rented storage unit. Those images sat untouched for decades. More than a year ago, however, the cases were removed under circumstances now at the centre of the dispute. By last year, the storage unit had become so disorganized that the landlord warned it could be a fire hazard.
According to the report by The New York Times, two men had been assisting Rockoff: Arch Hall Jr., a longtime friend, and Brad Bledsoe. When Rockoff’s health worsened in early 2023, and he spent a week in the hospital, both men became heavily involved in daily tasks and organizing his home.
“If it was not for me and Arch, he would be dead a year,” Bledsoe tells the news outlet.
The Negatives go ‘Missing’
In early 2024, Hall Jr. and Bledsoe asked Rockoff to sign prints left over from his 2000 exhibition. Bledsoe created a website to promote the work while continuing to help clear Rockoff’s home. Months later, Rockoff’s ex-wife Bornas says she realized the plastic cases containing his negatives were missing from his home. She claims she later found out that Bledsoe had allegedly removed them.
According to The New York Times, she wrote in a March email: “Bledsoe was able to talk Al into giving him his entire collection of negatives, which Brad now has in his possession.”
Bledsoe denies wrongdoing. He says Rockoff repeatedly asked him to safeguard the photo archive and act as its caretaker, and that they agreed verbally to share any income from future sales until Bledsoe recovered his expenses.
“Look, I said, ‘A book’s fine, but it’s a lot of work. Let’s start with the website,’” Bledsoe tells the news outlet. “My goal is a comrade-in-arms kind of thing.”
Hall supports Bledsoe’s account: “He begged Brad to save his life’s work because it was in terrible shape,” Hall says.
‘I Didn’t Give Him Anything’
But Bornas says that more than a year has passed without an inventory or written agreement outlining how the images would be managed or sold. Rockoff has reportedly not filed a complaint or confronted Bledsoe. Friends say his reluctance to establish legal safeguards has left him vulnerable. Bledsoe says there was no time to draw up legal documents and that sorting thousands of negatives is too large a task to handle alongside full-time work. He says he is willing to formalize an agreement but cannot reach Rockoff, claiming others have discouraged contact.
“I have no problem with returning some of Al’s items or all of his items as long as I am compensated for my expenses first, per our agreement,” Bledsoe says.
Rockoff’s ex-wife maintains that he never asked Bledsoe to print or sell his photographs. She says she was initially supportive of a modest website but did not anticipate a larger commercial project involving his entire archive.
According to the report, the matter remains unresolved. The website is still online, lists no items for sale, and credits Rockoff as the copyright holder. Bledsoe says that if Rockoff were to pass away, he would keep the site running until his expenses were covered, then provide some proceeds to Bornas before donating the negatives to a museum. For the photographer’s friends, it remains uncertain whether Rockoff fully consented or later changed his mind, particularly given his memory challenges and PTSD after his time at war.
But Rockoff tells The New York Times: “I didn’t give him [Bledsoe] anything. If he has them [the negatives], he has got to give them back.”
The photographer adds: “I have a lot of work to do before I pass on. I will be working at it when I die.”
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.