Born 1911, Manhattan, New York
Died 2005

Bernstein's early career was as a professional harmonica player, touring the United States with the Harmonica Rascals in 1928–29, when he was still a teenager. He trained as an architectural draftsman, but found work in the 1930s and 1940s as a mechanic in New York shipyards. Bernstein joined the Brooklyn Camera Club in 1936 and sometime thereafter also became a member of the Photo League, remaining until it closed in 1951. From 1945 until 1973 he worked at the famed Peerless Camera Store (which merged with Willoughby's Camera Shop in 1958 and is still in business today). Bernstein's work was included in the landmark exhibitions "The Family of Man" at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (1955) and "Man and His World" at Expo '67 in Montreal. From 1968 to 1972 he wrote a bimonthly article for Camera 35, called "Critique." He offered private classes in photography and in 1971–73 taught at the Cooper Union and New York Phoenix School of Design. In 1992 he published Reflections on an Aquarium, photographs of marine mammals at the New York Aquarium. The International Center of Photography in New York held retrospectives of Bernstein's work in 1981 and 1992.