Via Columbia Journalism Review
November 6, 2024
Showing posts with label election. Show all posts
Showing posts with label election. Show all posts
Wednesday, November 6, 2024
Monday, July 15, 2024
Monday, November 2, 2020
As a selection of presidential campaign photographs go on show in the US, curators Sid and Michelle Monroe offer an insight into the making of these images
ART & PHOTOGRAPHY
IN PICTURES
November 2, 2020
The Stories Behind Five Iconic Presidential Campaign Photographs
©Bill Eppridge: Bobby Kennedy campaigns in Indiana during May of 1968, with various aides and friends: former prizefighter Tony Zale and (right of Kennedy) NFL stars Lamar Lundy, Rosey Grier, and Deacon Jones Courtesy of Monroe Gallery
Since its invention almost two centuries ago, photography has become both art and artifact, artifice and evidence, documenting the world in which we live. Granted access to the most exclusive of spaces, photojournalists play an extraordinary role in writing a first draft of history, recording it even as it unfolds. In bearing witness to historic events, their images have the power to shape and shift public opinion without uttering a single word, and while some may strive to be objective, such a task is arguably impossible.
The media plays an integral role in US presidential elections, from what it chooses to cover to how it frames the stories it tells. The new exhibition, The Campaign, curated by gallerists Sid and Michelle Monroe, explores how images inform our perception of candidates running for the highest office in the world. Featuring work by Bill Eppridge, Irving Haberman, Cornell Capa, Bill Ray, John Loengard, Alfred Eisenstaedt, and Neil Leifer, among others, The Campaign illustrates how the photography has become an inextricable part of the political narrative over the past 75 years.
“What struck us when we were curating the show is that the themes of restoration of the country, corruption of my opponent, aspiration for the young, civil inequities, working people’s inequities, these keep recycling almost as if all of these issues are a part of the American personality,” says Monroe. “Each campaign seems to decide and direct which part they are going to amplify.” Here, the Monroes offer an insight into the making of five iconic images of the US presidential race.
“Bill Eppridge was a sweetheart. His career spanned everything from Vietnam, Civil Rights, and sports, but he as fate as would have it was the photographer who captured Robert Kennedy’s assassination [on 6 June 1968] so he was on the campaign from the beginning to the bitter end.
“This image was an outtake. It was never published. Bill brought it to us and he wasn’t even sure who everybody was in the picture so we had this wonderful time reconstructing it because he didn’t have notes. RFK made a point of campaigning in a convertible in every town and city he went into. He was warned and he said. ‘If they want to get me, they’re going to get me.’
“Bill said that at night Bobby would travel with members of his family, put them to bed in the hotel, then come down and seek out journalists who had been in Vietnam because he wanted to know everything about what they had seen and what they thought. Bill said he struggled because it became very difficult to be not emotional and not to get connected to this campaign.”
©Grey Villet: Senator John F Kennedy and his sisters walking with Governor Michael V Di Salle and Governor Abraham A Ribicoff, Los Angeles, CA, 1960 Courtesy of Monroe Gallery
“Grey Villet was a South African photographer who came to America. He was very quiet. He wasn’t as swashbuckling as a lot of the Life photographers were but he was extremely versatile. When you think about the versatility required in covering a presidential campaign, a riot, a rocket liftoff to space – the profession doesn’t get enough credit for what it requires of what we consider artists.
“In this era, every single one of these photographers was largely self-taught. For that versatility, they didn’t study to be specialised so when it came to an assignment this is where the innovation, artistry, athleticism, creativity would come in. Grey made this wonderful image that captures the aura of the Kennedy Mystique.
“We have this image of Kennedy commanding the campaign but the reality was the 1960 Democratic National Convention was highly contested between Kennedy and Lyndon B Johnson. The photograph shows Kennedy with his sisters in the background, other politicians with him, and women in these wonderful hats. He is bringing the full Kennedy Mystique into the convention to sway those delegates in a way that Johnson couldn’t. Johnson was much more gruff and brash and Kennedy was trying to put on a show.”
© Hank Walker/The Life Picture Collection: Presidential candidate John F Kennedy planning convention strategy with his brother and campaign manager, Robert, Hotel Biltmore, Los Angeles, CA, 1960 Courtesy of Monroe Gallery
“In the 1960 presidential campaign, John F Kennedy’s platform was that we are now a ‘New America’. We’re a younger, more aspirational people and we’re going to have to come together. Nixon’s strategy was the Southern Strategy [which appealed to white supremacy to increase Republican turnout in the South, just as the Civil Rights Movement was reaching new heights and segregation was being dismantled]. Nixon wanted to divide and invoke the fear the racial equality will change our lives and traditions forever.
“This photograph was made just when Kennendy was telling his brother Robert that for strategic reasons he has agreed with his advisors to name [then Texas Senator] Lyndon B. Johnson as his running mate. Hank Walker, working for Life magazine, said he took one photograph in that room and left immediately afterwards because of the tension. He stepped outside and shut the door. When the discussion was over, moments later, RFK came out and slammed his fist into his open palm, over and over again, saying, ‘Shit! Shit! Shit!’”
© Joe McNally: Joe Biden, 1988 Courtesy of Monroe Gallery
“Joe Biden was a Democratic candidate for President in 1987. One of the factors that ended his campaign was the discovery of a life-threatening aneurysm. He was out of commission for some time. The photograph was taken upon his return, just outside his Senate office. Biden came back as a hero who could speak to both sides of the aisle.
“Joe McNally, who is a very down to earth New Yorker, will tell you what’s what. He walked away saying, ‘This is the real deal. Biden is a genuine nice guy. I saw how he was received, but also just how he spent time with me. It’s a cliche but he’s a regular Joe.’”
© Brooks Kraft: President Barack Obama campaigns in the rain, Glen Allen, Virginia, 2012 Courtesy of Monroe Gallery
“Brooks Kraft covered both Obama presidential campaigns; he also covered the White House for Time magazine. What’s remarkable is that this rally was cut short because it rained torrentially. The circumstance speaks volumes about Obama as a candidate and as a President: that he went head first into the campaign. It’s a very heroic pose. It’s very rock and roll.
“It also speaks to the fitness of a photographer not to be daunted by the rain, to stick it out, to be looking for something different. It’s a transcendent image and one of those moments any photographer would look back at and say, ‘I can’t believe I got that.’ You position yourself to be available something like this should something like this present itself.
“We hear this over and over again from journalists: they’re cold, they’re wet, they’re hungry, they’re pushed around, they’re abused, they’re spit on. It’s really a missionary kind of dedication. We feel so devoted to these photographers. It’s so vital to our democracy to tell these stories – and to tell them unimpeded, which has been increasingly tampered with. As Orwell said, ‘Much of what is important for us to see and read we are not meant to know.’”
The Campaign is on view online and at Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico, through November 15, 2020.
Friday, October 30, 2020
"I will be traveling nearly 5,000 miles to cast my vote and I hope to see you there if you haven’t voted already" - Ryan Vizzions
"I will be flying home to ATL on the 2nd, landing at 7am on the 3rd and heading straight to the polls to cast my vote. Georgia is a battleground state. We can actually flip this state and begin the slow process creating real progress. I will be traveling nearly 5,000 miles to cast my vote and I hope to see you there if you haven’t voted already. This is for you @repjohnlewis! We love and miss you!"
Friday, November 12, 2010
JOHN F. KENNEDY: NOVEMBER, AND PHOTOGRAPHY
On November 8, 1960, John F. Kennedy was elected in the 44th American presidential election.
On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
On November 25, 1963, he was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
Bob Gomel: John F. Kennedy laid to rest, Arlington, 1963
John F. Kennedy was the first American president to understand the power of the image and photography, and he also understood the opposite impact of the wrong image. As recounted in the book The John F. Kennedys: A Family Album (Rizzoli):
"John spend hours looking at photographs of himself and his family. That was neither narcissism nor pride to Jack Kennedy, but recognition of polities as a show of fleeting images. In the mostly black-and-white world of the early 1960s, the right picture in the right place duplicating itself forever was worth a great deal more than any thousand words. One enduring image, say a photograph of the young senator walking away from the camera through Hyannis Port dunes to the sea, might have the political impact of a small war. Selecting the right image at the right time was at the heart of winning the elusive twin goddesses the man pursued, power and history.
The man who would be president also understood the opposite impact of the wrong image. That same year, Life's sister magazine, Time, assigned one of its most talented young writers, Hugh Sidey, to write about Kennedy, to get to know him. On second meeting, Sidey and Kennedy were walking near the short subway that connects the U.S. Capitol with the Senate Office Building. They bumped, almost literally, into Kennedy's buddy Senator George Smathers of Florida, who was posing for a Senate photographer with a small claque of pretty young women from his state. All laughing, they pulled the handsome young senator from Massachusetts into the group and he smiled for the birdie.
Waving goodbye to the gigglers, Kennedy said to Sidey, "Get hold of that photographer and destroy the negative."
Sidey did it.
President Kennedy had learned the power of the image, of the visual, from his father, who was for a time a power in the movie business. Joseph P. Kennedy was the first, or among the first, to merge the creation and marketing of the celebrity trade, the tricks of public relations, to the business of politics and governing. With politics aforethought, the founding father had created an archive—still and moving pictures of his children—ready to be used to entice a nation into a cause in the same way they were pulled into movie theaters."
John Kennedy's campaign, presidency, and tragic assassination resulted in countless photographic images, many now considered to be iconic. In the mostly black-and-white world of the early 1960s, the right picture in the right place duplicating itself forever was worth a great deal more than any thousand words.
Related: 50 Years Ago: the Kennedy Nixon Debates
Marilyn Monroe, Kennedys Recalled in White House Archive Sale
Alfred Eisenstaedt: Vice President-elect Lyndon Johnson chatting with President-elect John Kennedy and his wife Jackie at the president's inaugural ball, Washington, DC, January 1961
On November 22, 1963, John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas.
Carl Mydans: On the 6:25 from Grand Central to Stamford, CT, November 22, 1963
On November 25, 1963, he was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia.
| John F. Kennedy Jr. saluting his father's coffin, November 25, 1963 with Ted Kennedy, Jacqueline Kennedy, Rose Kennedy, Peter Lawford, and Robert F. Kennedy in background |
Bob Gomel: John F. Kennedy laid to rest, Arlington, 1963
John F. Kennedy was the first American president to understand the power of the image and photography, and he also understood the opposite impact of the wrong image. As recounted in the book The John F. Kennedys: A Family Album (Rizzoli):
"John spend hours looking at photographs of himself and his family. That was neither narcissism nor pride to Jack Kennedy, but recognition of polities as a show of fleeting images. In the mostly black-and-white world of the early 1960s, the right picture in the right place duplicating itself forever was worth a great deal more than any thousand words. One enduring image, say a photograph of the young senator walking away from the camera through Hyannis Port dunes to the sea, might have the political impact of a small war. Selecting the right image at the right time was at the heart of winning the elusive twin goddesses the man pursued, power and history.
This photograph by Mark Shaw was said to have been John F. Kennedy's favorite photograph of himself
The man who would be president also understood the opposite impact of the wrong image. That same year, Life's sister magazine, Time, assigned one of its most talented young writers, Hugh Sidey, to write about Kennedy, to get to know him. On second meeting, Sidey and Kennedy were walking near the short subway that connects the U.S. Capitol with the Senate Office Building. They bumped, almost literally, into Kennedy's buddy Senator George Smathers of Florida, who was posing for a Senate photographer with a small claque of pretty young women from his state. All laughing, they pulled the handsome young senator from Massachusetts into the group and he smiled for the birdie.
Waving goodbye to the gigglers, Kennedy said to Sidey, "Get hold of that photographer and destroy the negative."
Sidey did it.
President Kennedy had learned the power of the image, of the visual, from his father, who was for a time a power in the movie business. Joseph P. Kennedy was the first, or among the first, to merge the creation and marketing of the celebrity trade, the tricks of public relations, to the business of politics and governing. With politics aforethought, the founding father had created an archive—still and moving pictures of his children—ready to be used to entice a nation into a cause in the same way they were pulled into movie theaters."
John Kennedy's campaign, presidency, and tragic assassination resulted in countless photographic images, many now considered to be iconic. In the mostly black-and-white world of the early 1960s, the right picture in the right place duplicating itself forever was worth a great deal more than any thousand words.
Related: 50 Years Ago: the Kennedy Nixon Debates
Marilyn Monroe, Kennedys Recalled in White House Archive Sale
Monday, November 1, 2010
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