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Peter Gowland, whose exuberant, sun-drenched swimsuit photos and self-designed large-format cameras helped define glamour photography for six decades, has died. He was 93.
Gowland died March 17 at his Pacific Palisades home of complications from surgery for a broken hip, said his wife of 68 years, Alice.
The son of actors Gibson Gowland and Sylvia Andrew, Gowland was born in Hollywood on April 3, 1916, and grew up on motion picture sets. After attending Hollywood High School, he worked as a dress extra -- often in tuxedos and other formal wear -- in movies.
His interest was in being behind the camera, however.
Gowland prowled the studios learning lighting techniques and, sneaking his Rolleiflex camera onto the sets by hiding it in a lunch bag, shot portfolio pictures of fellow actors during breaks in production.
He met Alice Adams when one of her boyfriends asked Gowland to take a picture of her for him. The pair went out together for the first time on Dec. 7, 1941, the day Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. "It was a date that lived...