Pulitzer
Prize-Winning Photographer to Speak at RCC Feb. 19
ASHEBORO (February 5, 2013) – Pulitzer
Prize-winning photojournalist David Hume Kennerly, who documented the war in
Vietnam and was President Gerald Ford’s personal White House photographer, will
be the guest speaker at a Canon Explorer of Light event at Randolph Community
College’s Photography Imaging Center on Tuesday, Feb. 19. The event is being
cosponsored by the RCC Photographic Technology department, the American Society
of Media Photographers/North Carolina, and Canon. The lecture will begin at 7
p.m.; it is free and open to the public, but preregistration is requested
because space is limited.
Kennerly has been shooting on the front lines of history for more than 45
years, according to his biography. He has photographed eight wars, as many U.S.
presidents, and has traveled to dozens of countries along the way.
At 25, the Roseburg, Ore., native won the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for Feature
Photography for his previous year’s work that included photos of the Vietnam,
Cambodia, and India-Pakistan Wars, and the Ali-Frazier fight in Madison Square
Garden. In 1976, he was awarded two first prizes in the World Press photo
contest for pictures from the final days of Cambodia. He has been presented
with numerous other honors, including the Overseas Press Club’s Olivier Rebbot
Award for “Best Photographic Reporting from Abroad” for his coverage of Reagan
and Gorbachev’s historic first summit meeting in Geneva. He was named “One of
the Most 100 Most Important People in Photography” by American Photo
Magazine.
Kennerly was nominated for a Primetime Emmy as executive producer of NBC’s “The
Taking of Flight 847” and was writer and executive producer of a two-hour NBC
pilot, “Shooter,” starring Helen Hunt, based on his Vietnam experiences.
“Shooter” won the Emmy for “Outstanding Cinematography.” He is executive
producer of the documentary, “Portraits of a Lady,” starring former Justice
Sandra Day O’Conner, which made the short list of films eligible for the 2008
Academy Award nominations. He was executive producer of 2011’s “Bucksville,” an
ultra-low budget film shot in Portland, Ore., featuring Tom Berenger.
Kennerly is a graduate of the AFI Conservatory’s two-year film directing
program and directed a commercial starring former mayor Ed Koch shot for New
York Presbyterian Hospital.
Kennerly has been a contributing photographer for Time Magazine, John F.
Kennedy Jr’s George magazine, Life Magazine, and was a
contributing editor for Newsweek magazine for 10 years. He has more
than 50 major magazine covers to his credit.
He has published several books of his work, including “Shooter,” “Photo
Op,” “Seinoff: The Final Days of Seinfeld,” “Photo du Jour,”
and “Extraordinary Circumstances: The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford.” In
2009, he produced “Barack Obama: The Official Barack Obama Inaugural Book,”
with Bob McNeely, who was President Clinton’s official White House
photographer. He provided many exclusive behind-the-scenes photographs of
President and Mrs. Obama for the project. A major exhibition of photographs
from the book was mounted in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American
History in Washington, D.C., in 2009, and attracted more than a million
visitors.
Kennerly is on the Board of Trustees of the Gerald R. Ford Foundation, and the
Atlanta Board of Visitors of the Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), and
is a member of the board of directors of the Eddie Adams Workshop and the Press
Photographers Association of Greater Los Angeles.
To register for the Kennerly lecture at RCC on Feb. 19, go to http://kennerly.eventbrite.com.
The Photography Imaging Center is located in the Administration/Education
Center on the Asheboro Campus. Take the McDowell Road exit from Highway 220
Bypass/I73-I74 and follow the signs.
CUTLINES:
Five U.S. presidents photographed by David Kennerly.
David Kennerly’s photo of the Ali-Frazier prize fight in Madison Square Garden.
Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist David Kennerly.
