[5] In 1933, he moved to San Francisco to work in commercial photography, and met Ansel Adams, who lived near his studio.

[1][2] Following his documentation of World War II, Bristol settled in Tokyo, Japan, selling his photographs to magazines in Europe and the United States, and becoming the Asian correspondent to Fortune.

[2] Following the death of his wife in 1956, Bristol burned all his negatives, packed his photographs into storage, and retired from photography.

[2] Subsequently he approached his alma mater, Art Center College of Design, where the World War II and migrant worker photographs became the subject of a 1989 solo exhibition.

[10] In 2006, a documentary was made, The Compassionate Eye: Horace Bristol, Photojournalist, written and directed by David Rabinovitch.