Mickey Pallas; Photojournalist

Mickey Pallas, 81, a photojournalist and pioneer technician whose work is collected as art. As an orphan in Chicago, Pallas joined a camera club and found his future. Later, as a Studebaker automobile plant worker active in the United Auto Workers and as chairman of the local Anti-Discrimination League, he began photographing union activities and making portraits of workers. He earned photo assignments from other unions and civil rights groups and soon worked as a full-time photographer serving magazines, entertainers such as the Harlem Globetrotters and companies including Standard Oil of Indiana. In 1959, his love of processing photos led to the development of Gamma Photo Lab in Chicago. When he sold the company in 1972, his two-man shop had grown to 125 employees and was an industry leader. He opened the short-lived Center for Photographic Arts for exhibitions with library and teaching facilities, and then spent the balance of his career in artistic photography. In 1986, Pallas’ work was the subject of a retrospective at the Chicago Cultural Center. In 1992, a collection of his photos was presented at the Palm Springs Desert Museum. His photographs hang in several museums and galleries, including the Stephen Cohen Gallery in Los Angeles. On Friday in Scottsdale, Ariz., after a stroke and heart attack.