Born Aug. 31, 1947, in Detroit, Mich. Won Pulitzer prize for feature
photography (for the Topeka Capital-Journal) in 1972. The winning
photograph was "Moment of Life," showing a newborn on its mother's
stomach and the father cradling the mother's head.
He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for feature photography in 1973 for his photograph, "Moment of Life," about the birth of his daughter, Jacki Coburn in 1973.
He was born in Detroit, Michigan and raised in Phoenix, Arizona. At 18 years old, he worked for the Phoenix Gazette for four years before getting a job as a staff photographer for the Topeka Capital Journal in Topeka, Kansas from 1970 to 1974. From 1974 until 1982, he went to the Register Guard newspaper.
He is survived by his former wife, Lynda Coburn Lanker; their stepdaughter, Jacki Coburn (born in 1973) of Corvallis, Oregon; a stepdaughter Julie Coburn of San Francisco, California; and a son, Dustin Lanker of Portland, Oregon.