In 1970, he began covering the Vietnam War for Life, which he continued until the famed American illustrated weekly ceased regular publication in December 1972. When the coup d’état against Chile’s president Salvador Allende took place on September 1973, he covered the event’s repercussions and as a result won his first professional prize shared with Raymond Depardon and Dutch photographer Chas Gerretsen: the Overseas Press Club of America’ Robert Capa Gold Medal. In 1976, he and Franco-British journalist Robert Pledge, who had taken charge of Gamma’s New York office decided to co-found their own independent news agency, Contact Press Images.