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David Hume Kennerly
David Hume Kennerly


Barack Obama:
The Official Inaugural Book

David's latest book
Also check out David Hume Kennerly's web site

David Hume Kennerly
David Hume Kennerly (1970's)

Introduction
Some highlights from David Hume Kennerly's amazing career as a photojournalist. In 1968 he photographed Robert Kennedy at the California Presidential primary moments before he was gunned down at the Ambassador Hotel. He covered Vietnam for UPI where he won a Pulitzer Prize in 1972. He was President Gerald R. Ford's personal photographer. After Washington, Kennerly covered some of the biggest stories of the 70s and 80s for Time Magazine, including Egyptian President Sadat's trip to Israel, the mass suicide at Jonestown, and he was able to take exclusive photos of President Reagan and Soviet President Gorbachev's first meeting in Geneva in 1985.

Five Presidents - Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon
Chris/Larry: Can you tell us how you got started in photography?
David: I was born and raised in Roseburg, Oregon, and developed an interest in photography early on. I recall watching a garage burn down near my house when I was 12 years old, which is a pretty exciting event if you’re a kid. Then a photographer from the local newspaper crossed the police line to take pictures. It made an impact on me - a camera can take you to places that other people can’t go. What a concept! Since then I’ve gone plenty of places other people couldn’t go, and have even taken a few risks along the way to get there.
Chris/Larry: You certainly have taken risks in your career. You won a Pulitzer Prize in 1972 for your coverage of the Vietnam War. Would you have any advice for future combat photographers?
David: I wouldn’t encourage anybody to go do that, or discourage them for that matter. It’s really something that comes from within. Modern combat photography has changed so much except that you can still get killed doing it. In Vietnam, you could pretty much go wherever you wanted to go if you were crazy enough to want to go there. The military was more than happy to provide the ride. Now it’s much harder to get to the fighting. The U.S. Military these days facilitates this by “embedding” photographers with combat units, and photographers can definitely see some action, but it’s harder to get to it. My main war was Vietnam, and you could “embed” yourself whenever you wanted to, wherever you wanted to, and the military was happy to have you there. Now days in places like Iraq and Afghanistan it’s doubly dangerous. You can’t even walk down the streets of Baghdad as a foreigner without some risk, which makes it really difficult to appreciate the local culture.
Chris/Larry: What would you say the toughest assignment you ever handled was?
David: A real tough assignment is trying to get something that seems impossible to achieve, and it doesn’t even mean you have to come under fire to get it.

In that regard, I think one of the most challenging assignments I’ve had was getting inside Reagan and Gorbachev’s first Summit in Geneva 1985. That was a big scoop, and to this day, it stands as one of the best ones that I’ve had. Every other member of the press was kept away from the behind-the-scenes action, but I figured out how to get inside by playing my contacts. Because of that, I got the exclusive photos of the two leaders sitting by the fire in that Geneva boathouse. It created quite a stir among my colleagues, and didn’t make me any new friends!


Reagan and Gorbachev
Chris/Larry: How did you manage to get where no one else could go?
David: The one guy in the Reagan press office who was the most helpful was the one person that the other photographers disregarded and felt had no power. I knew he did. His job was to deal with photographer’s requests, but they always tried to go over his head. Every time they did that the people they went to would always kick it back to him, he’d get mad, and they wouldn’t get their pictures. The photographers refused to believe that he was the main man. I always liked him and appreciated what he did, and knew he could pull it off. It was just a matter of knowing how the system works, that’s all. Sometimes the best solution is the easiest solution, and the one that you don’t believe can ever work.
Chris/Larry: Well, you’ve had some remarkable inside experience. Perhaps some of your most famous pictures came from your years as Gerald Ford’s White House Photographer. You had remarkably open access to the President. Can you tell us a bit about that?
David: I covered Gerald R. Ford from the day that he was picked by President Nixon to replace Vice President Agnew who had resigned. John Durniak, Time magazine’s picture editor, assigned me full time to cover the VP, which was unheard of up to then. It was certainly not clear back in October of ’73 that Nixon would be out by the following summer of ’74. Durniak and the Time editors just took a chance, and because of that I got to know the Fords really well. When Ford became President, he asked me to join his administration. I was 27 years old, was the chief photographer, and ran the White House photo operations.
Chris/Larry: You were smart enough when you had gotten that assignment to ask for exclusive unlimited access. What made you want it that way? You were a young photographer at the time, but yet you put yourself in the right position and said the right things.
David: I loved being a Time Magazine photographer, but I was also interested in the White House job if it became an option. I didn’t, however, want to lose the freedom I had as a globetrotting shooter to become some kind of a photographic eunuch controlled by a bunch of White House staffers just for the glory of becoming the president’s photographer. With that in mind, I laid it on the table for President Ford, who had only been in office a few hours. He asked me how I saw the White House photographer’s job, (which had not at that point been offered). I looked him in the eye and told him that to do it I needed to report directly to him, and to have total access. He smiled and said, “You don’t want Air Force One on the weekends?” The President agreed to my terms, and I entered the job without having any superior other than Ford who of course was everyone’s boss! Throughout that short period of two-and-a-half years, he stood by his word to me about the unprecedented access, which allowed me to photograph some extraordinary situations.
Chris/Larry: Did the President express interest or curiosity of what you were actually capturing? How engaged was he with your actual output or what you were doing.
David: The president let me do my thing. He’s probably the least vain person I’ve ever worked with, so to that degree he didn’t care how he looked in the photos. I don’t think it even crossed his mind. He had more important things to deal with. That definitely made my job easier, but it was a unique situation. He was happy that I showed him for who he was, and because he was comfortable with himself there was no conflict. I did my job, he did his.

Henry Kissinger
Chris/Larry: You also were credited with getting access for a lot of other photographers. That certainly helped you cement some friendships.
David: My predecessor Ollie Atkins was Nixon’s photographer. He was a role model for what I didn’t want to be. Unfortunately for Ollie any number of people could tell him what to do, (or not do), and I felt bad for him. I refused to be in that situation. It was also frustrating not having access to the Nixon White House for we outside photographers at the time. Very few ever got in there to shoot anything substantive.

One of the first things I did as the White House photographer was to create access for my colleagues who wanted to do inside stories. They just had to call me up and say, “We’re doing a story on economics, could I get a few minutes to photograph the president?” I would pass that on to the Mr. Ford, tell him, “Wally McNamee of Newsweek, Dirck Halstead of Time, or Frank Johnston of the Washington Post would like to come in.” He would most often say fine. They would then accompany me to take pictures. It was perfect. There has really never been anything like that before or since, and it’s really because of my relationship with the President, and his positive attitude about photographers. He liked them. I also wanted to share the wealth with my buddies, and he made that possible.


Richard Nixon
Chris/Larry: Tell us what you see in the journalism market now.
David: The journalism market, as we know it, is heading for extinction. Many great newspapers are folding. The Rocky Mountain News, for instance, just stopped publication. Their photo staff won two Pulitzers in the last five years for their photography. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised driving down an off-ramp and seeing a photographer standing there saying he’ll shoot for food. It’s a really serious situation out there.

Michele and Barack Obama
Chris/Larry: Do you see anything taking the place of traditional journalism, anything that would give photographers both access and way to publish these important events? Is the web capable of doing that, or do you just see it going away?
David: I’ll give you an example of how bad it is. Obama’s first overseas trip to Europe and the Middle East would normally be covered by Time, Newsweek, and the wire services. Newsweek didn’t send a photographer, and that does not bode well for the magazine business. When I heard that, it gave me great cause for concern, and makes me wonder if Newsweek’s days are numbered.

The printed page is becoming a diminishing resource. I get the New York Times and the Los Angeles Times everyday, and they are shrinking both in physical size and content. When I was talking to Dirck Halstead in Austin the other day, he was worried that he won’t be getting his New York Times if the Austin Statesman goes out of business because they print the Times in that area.

I have young kids, and they don’t read the newspaper, everything for them is online. Because of the expense of putting out newspapers and magazines, I think their days are numbered. I would not have thought that five years ago, but I sure do now.

Chris/Larry: In 2000, you did a self inspired project of taking a photo a day, and that turned into the book “Photo du Jour”. Tell us about self-assignment and the discipline of keeping it creative.
David: I refer to Photo du Jour as a self-inflicted assignment. It was a whimsical effort that became a very difficult process because I had to shoot pictures every single day of the week. I used a Mamiya 7 II camera, which is a medium format camera that looks like a Leica on steroids. I only used the 43mm lens, which is equivalent to 21mm on a 35 camera.

It was a political year which I was covering, but I wanted to show the road outside of the political campaigns. I didn’t want to shut my eyes to the world we were passing through with the candidates as I had done so many times, but instead I wanted see what was going on the other side of the “bubble.”

There are a lot good political pictures in the project, but the offbeat pictures from whatever town I was in really worked. The Smithsonian did a 150-picture exhibition from the book in 2003, and it’s probably the work I’m most proud of overall. It’s a one-year photo essay.

I’m a Canon “Explorer of Light” which is their elite group of photographers. People like myself in various areas of photography that they consider to be hotshots, and I’m honored to be there because I do use Canons. I’m particularly evangelical about the Canon 5D Mark II which I think is God’s gift to photography! It’s the best camera that’s come down the line in the digital era.


Anwar Sadat
Chris/Larry: You’ve been quoted as saying “In photography, everything can be taught except how to see.” How did you learn to see?
David: You can learn lighting and other technical expertise in school, or assisting someone who knows what they’re doing. But the way you see things is unique to your background, how you were brought up, what your mother taught you, and being around people that have a sense of humor and irony. Why does Jim Nachtwey only take pictures of the dramatic difficult part of life in a way that’s so compelling? Why does Elliot Erwitt shoot pictures that make you laugh? It’s because that’s how they see it. I don’t know how you could teach somebody to be funny if they’re not. It’s a natural gift for the most part, and if you are lucky you will discover that you have that gift. I think you’ve either got it or you don’t.
Chris/Larry: There has been a great revolution on both sides of the camera – the side where the shooter is actually in action, and then the evaluation and distribution. How has that affected your career?
David: Digital photography is a bit of a curse, but I’m an old dog that has learned new digital tricks. I’m very much up on technology, which is part of being a professional. If you look at it simply, digital is just another delivery system, and is not changing how I see things, or how I’m going to take a picture.

I think one of the serious problems in digital photography is that we are sacrificing the professional picture editor. Like any good writer needs an editor, so do photographers. Nowadays if you’re a wire photographer you edit on the spot. Photographers aren’t generally their own best editors. My whole career has been based on being saved by good editors, and they’re harder to find now. These are things being affected by the world of digital photography, but digital is here to stay. Anyone can pick out the no-brainer photos, but when it comes to the more subtle aspects of photography, you’re better off having somebody who’s not emotionally involved step in and look at your photos. You’ll be surprised at what you missed.

A lot of good photos are being lost because they were edited or deleted prematurely, or missed entirely because you were looking in the back of the camera as a good moment happened. Try not to be so interested in what you just took!


Robert Kennedy
Chris/Larry: So much of our understanding of our times and ourselves has come through iconic pictures in the media. Since papers are folding and journalism is shifting, do you see any direction, or potential for some other form of marketing or business for photographers?
David: We can only hope that photographers are still going out into the wild to take pictures of things you wouldn’t normally see unless they were there to record it. That’s part of what’s great about the profession. That’s why I went to Vietnam and why other photographers do what they do. But the current economics of it are tough. Just the idea of Newsweek not sending a photographer on Obama’s first Presidential trip is a bad sign, and it’s because it’s really expensive to run a photo department, and to have shooters out there on the road.

Present economics are getting in the way of what used to be a phone call in the middle of the night wanting me to be somewhere exotic the next day. We aren’t getting that kind of phone call these days. It’s now up to the ingenuity of the individual photographers to find new markets. Anybody can put out pictures on the Internet now, and anybody can have opinions and write or blog about them. But nothing changes the truthfulness of photography, what it is, and what it represents.

I think the Internet and other vehicles of delivery are where we’re at, and hopefully we will always have print publications. But we have to get used to the fact that the majority of our work is going to be online. That’s not a satisfying way for me to look at photos, however. I like holding them in my hand or seeing them on the wall. That isn’t an old-fashioned attitude.


Bill Clinton
Chris/Larry: So, how are you adapting?
David: I’m just trying to figure out how to make it more interesting, and how to find other work. In the commercial area big companies are cutting back, particularly on photography. The last thing book publishers budget for are photos. I get calls all the time, “Oh, we’d really like to use these pictures, but we don’t have any money left.” I said, “Well, then, call someone else. Don’t call me.” If that’s how you regard photography, then you’re talking to the wrong person. I love photography, especially other people’s work.
Chris/Larry: You have been shooting for 40 years, how do you bring that to market?
David: My hundreds of thousands of photographs sitting in boxes and cabinets aren’t doing me any good until they’re scanned, properly organized and captioned. Again, we come down to economics. If I hire somebody full-time to scan my pictures, I have to pay them a lot of money, and they can only do, 25 or 30 a day if I’m lucky. Or if you have hundreds of thousands of pictures, and send them out for five or ten bucks a scan, it’s prohibitively expensive to get the work done. When I found ScanCafe and started working with them it was a landmark moment for me because I now have thousands more pictures scanned than I would’ve been able to otherwise afford. and they do professional caliber work. I’m an advisor to them. Like Canon cameras, I wouldn’t endorse anything that I didn’t use personally, and I don’t endorse anything at all other than ScanCafe and Canon, and that’s it.

Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier
Chris/Larry: Scanning also gives you backups of your film originals.
David: I’ve lost photographs. I had a flood in my garage when I was out of town, and fortunately, my wife saw what was happening and was able to rescue most of them. Here’s a worst case scenario: Jacques Lowe had incredible photographs of the Kennedys over the years and particularly John F. Kennedy and the kids and his family. His negatives were in the World Trade Center in a bank vault. What could’ve been safer than that? They were all vaporized, and they hadn’t been scanned. All of those pictures except for the prints that were elsewhere or in books are gone. Don’t let that happen to you!

I’ve also become evangelical about this subject, and it wasn’t because of ScanCafe per se. It’s just that they are one good solution, and one I could recommend to everybody, including my fellow photographers. I have almost a thousand pictures being scanned with them at any given time and it doesn’t need to be done overnight. From the time you send them out to the time you get them back it would be about five or six weeks. But if they’ve been sitting in your garage for 20 years, what’s the difference?

Chris/Larry: The only fear there would be the possibility of loss or damage in transit as well.
David: I think loss and damage in garage, attics, deterioration or damage from mice, is a much larger problem. I’m sending key images to ScanCafe because of their excellent track record on getting them out and back. Honestly, I would tell anybody to do it, professionals or amateurs alike, because it’s not only economical, but the quality is so good that there’s no reason not to do it. For the pro the value is getting those pictures into a stream where they can be sold. for the majority of the people it’s preserving family photos, and being able to share them. I’m just trying to ring the bell a little bit!

Hillary Clinton
Chris/Larry: What do you see in the future?
David: I’m not totally doom and gloom about the business. There will always be photography. But I think the single biggest issue is where it’s all going, and what’s going to happen trying to get there. Technology has changed everything. I remember when Life Magazine folded in 1972, and it was blamed on television. You just have to evolve along with the technology, and adapt with it to make a living. That’s the big issue right now pertaining to my particular end of the business.

One thing that that the future holds is more time at the computer. For every hour I’m shooting there are another two or three hours of editing and Photoshopping. It’s not as much fun as it used to be, when we just “shoot and ship”, and then go to the bar and laugh at the reporters who had to file their stories. Well, now you’re there filing right alongside them. The workload has just gone way up for the photographer.

The great thing about photography is as long as you can still walk and see halfway decently, you could still do it. That’s exactly what I’m doing.

Check out David Hume Kennerly's web site

David endorses ScanCafe as a scanning solution

 

Contents of the Interview © 2009 Chris Maher and Larry Berman
Images and text are protected under United States and International copyright laws and may not be reproduced, stored, or manipulated without written permission of the authors.

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