OLD FRIENDS: David Kennerly
Photo by David Kennerly
A VISIT FROM PULITZER PRIZE WINNING PHOTOGRAPHER DAVID KENNERLY
“Hey, I’m gonna be up in your neighborhood soon…” a familiar voice cut through the beeping of the forklift on the crush pad, “ ...maybe I can stop by and shoot some pictures of your harvest.”
I’m pretty sure a big part of David Kennerly’s success as one of America’s foremost news photographers is that he has never shed the easy-going, down-to-earth (and often earthy) style of an Oregon kid who grew up in the 50’s and 60’s.
“You bet, David!” I responded. “It’ll be great to see you here…”
Back in the day, David and I graduated a year apart from West Linn High School. As he reminded me not long ago, my dad, the Superintendent, signed his high school diploma.
I vividly recall watching him stalk the edges of the gym floor during basketball games while on assignment for the West Linn High “Amplifier.” I took note because I was to become the paper’s editor a year or two later. By then David was already shooting news professionally for the Oregon Journal newspaper in Portland.
It wasn’t long before he landed a job with United Press International living and working in Los Angeles and New York. In 1971 he captured a historic image of a defeated Muhammed Ali crashing to the mat at the feet of Joe Frazier. But about that time came the big one: a combat assignment in Viet Nam.
A portfolio of his powerful images of the war in Viet Nam and Cambodia along with coverage from India and the Ali-Frazier fight won the 1972 Pulitzer Prize for feature photography. Not long after, gigs at both Life and Time magazines led to a friendship with soon-to-be-President Gerald Ford and his family. President Ford selected his friend David as Chief White House Photographer, adding terabytes to David's already global contacts list.
David and I crossed paths occasionally during my days at CBS… in Beirut, Cairo, Saudi Arabia and perhaps some other spots we have since forgotten. We always kept each other’s numbers.
So it was a real delight to see him again, this time at our farm for a single, intense day of the 2021 harvest. Youthful, loquacious and ever-disarming, David shared lots of news about our many journalist friends in common, as well as plenty of political gossip and a fair share of B.S.
