He won a George Polk Award in 1953 for a photograph of a diver 100 feet under water, and he taught photography at the Academy of Art University.

Ralph Stackpole left Paris with artist's model Francine "Ginette" Mazen, returning to San Francisco, the two eventually marrying in Mexico.

[4] His small format 35mm Leica allowed him to capture more action as it unfolded than the other newspaper photographers who preferred larger film cameras mounted on tripods for their higher quality.

[5] As the only child of well-connected artists, Stackpole met famous people such as American photographers Dorothea Lange and Edward Weston,[6] and Mexican painters Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera; Rivera painted an image of teen-aged Stackpole playing with a model airplane into his mural titled Allegory of California (1931).

In 1932, Stackpole was exposed to more fine art photography at the De Young Museum which was exhibiting works by Weston, Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Willard Van Dyke and other photographers associated with Group f/64 in San Francisco.

[3] Stackpole's candid photo of ex-president Herbert Hoover dozing off in 1934 during a commencement speech delivered by Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins was refused by publisher William F. Knowland of the Oakland Tribune, but it was purchased by Time magazine, and it led to freelance work.

[9] At the suggestion of Imogen Cunningham, Stackpole submitted his photos to Vanity Fair magazine which published two pages of them in July 1935.

Camera also published his bridge construction shots, and Ansel Adams included them in the 1940 multi-artist collective exhibition he curated called A Pageant of Photography, shown to millions of visitors at the Golden Gate International Exposition in the middle of the San Francisco Bay.

As a result of the Vanity Fair photo essay,[12] Stackpole was brought into Henry Luce's new conception of Life magazine as a weekly photojournal starting in November 1936.

Stackpole was one of the first four staff photographers hired by Luce, alongside Alfred Eisenstaedt, Margaret Bourke-White, and Thomas McAvoy.

He moved to Los Angeles and attended parties in Hollywood for filmmakers and film stars, in the process capturing famous images of Alfred Hitchcock, Gary Cooper, Vivien Leigh, Greer Garson, Elizabeth Taylor,[9] Douglas Fairbanks Jr, Ingrid Bergman,[15] Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, Orson Welles, Rita Hayworth and more.

Stackpole brought his "oldest, most expendable" Leica camera to the job, encased in a clear plastic box to make it temporarily waterproof.

[16] Stackpole's plastic box, constructed by a friend, protected the camera under water for about 15 spearfishing and swimming shots, then it flooded.

Flynn was charged with raping a 15-year-old girl named Peggy Satterlee that day on the yacht, and Stackpole was called as a witness in the court case.

[15] During World War II, Stackpole went to the Pacific Theatre for Life magazine, attached to the United States Navy.

His most prominent wartime work was at the Battle of Saipan in June–July 1944 with Life staff writer Robert Sherrod, the two joined after the fighting by photographer W. Eugene Smith.

On July 11, Stackpole and two newspapermen – Keith Wheeler of the Chicago Daily Times and Frank R. Kelley of the New York Herald Tribune – reported to the US military that about 4,000 civilians and fleeing Japanese soldiers were massing at Marpi Point, Saipan's northern tip.

The next day, Sherrod and Stackpole accompanied interpreters from the US Marines carrying loudspeakers to Marpi Point, to observe the attempts by American military men to stop the suicides and induce surrender.