Growing up in Brooklyn, New York, the son of Jewish immigrants, Bert Stern was first exposed to photography at a young age by his father who worked as a children's portrait photographer. Dropping out of high school at the age of 16, Sterne took a mail room job at Look magazine where he soon became a protégé of the art director, a connection that would later gain him his first job as a commercial photographer. As art director at Flair magazine, Stern learned to develop film and make contact sheets. During the Korean War Sterne served in the United States Army assigned to the photographic department in Japan. In the 1950s and 60s in New York, along with Irving Penn, Richard Avedon and Mark Shaw, Sterne helped redefine the role of the image in fashion and advertising art imbuing simple commercial photography with an artistic appreciation.