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| Also check
out
David Hume Kennerly's web
site |
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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. |
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Check out
David Hume
Kennerly's web site |
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David endorses
ScanCafe as a
scanning solution |
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Contents of the Interview © 2009 Chris Maher and Larry Berman
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