Other nationally recognized photographers. I want to talk to you a little bit, of your collection op display. The first one we have chronologically is a photo it was on november 27th. Can you tell me a little bit about that photo . Sure. I was given a wide luxe camera i usually didnt use. I got out in the street. We could go any place we wanted to. I positioned myself at the corner of maine and harwood, because the memo would have to turn. It gives you a different perspective driving straight down the street, making the turn on to maine. Across the street from harwood and maine is delays city hall. There was a woman who had a caricature across the street, all the way with jfk head caricature. I went over and talked to her and told her when the motorcade came by, be sure to have it straight up and high. I arranged myself and waited until that caricature fit into what we were doing and i made the frame. Because its a wide luxe. I only made two pictures, besides four, it was too far and they were passed it. Once the picture was made i was about six blocks for the dallas times, i was working for upi. I started working in the street. S a it turns out i had gone about a half a block and this motorcycle cop hit the foot of a pedestrian and turned the motorcycle. I left so i could keep goes because the streets were too full of people to ran on the sidewalks. I ran up to the dallas herald times elevator. It didnt come in two minutes. I ran up the stairs an went into the newsroom. To the newsroom had all the people that were at their desk, in tears. Heads down. I ran straight into the photolab where i gave them my film and found out what happened. I then go to my locker i needed, the whole idea was the picture of him in the motorcade would be used clear across the front page of the dallas times herald. Found out exactly and talked to everybody, gave my film to woody allen a forever for upi and the book depository was only 2 1 2 blocks away. If i ran over there. When i got to the book depository, the place was reemed with cop cars and people running everywhere. There were cops and newspapers standing in front of the building. I grabbed my gear and thought, heck, he wont shoot me or the cops and i ran across the ask. I was there with the News Conference the cops were trying to have and information trying to come out and reporters were talking. When the police radio squawked, it was found a man named temple boley who lived in eke crist, a center of dallas. I grabbed someone and said, lets go. It was a no crime place, no alcohol. I didnt know how many cops were killed there. Directly across the street, went to the corner in oakcliff where frisk people were going through the car. The body was not laying there anymore. There were neighbors and people looking all over the place. I dont know how many pictures. The thing that was very interesting, i was the only photographer there. Its hard to get beat on the job if youre the only person there. There was one television crew, the Dallas Police photographers were there. All of a sudden to the radio squad said they had the shooter trapped in the texas theater on a few blocks away. We headed to the texas theater. The reporter knew. We jumped in the car and went straight to city hall. When i parked the car, i went back upstairs to homicide. He was pointing at this under his eye and his comment was, you see what they did to me. He went to the Homicide Office where he stayed. Later the police were carrying the gun overhead to get in. There were at least 100 photographers and reporters in that hallway. About an hour later the baby and Marina Oswald arrived also in the Homicide Office. And photographed that and we were then just waiting. They decided that i should stay there to see what happened. Later that night, at the urging of the networks, they took us down for a lineup. The thing that was very interesting about that time, thats when Walter Cronkite came on the air to announce president kennedy was dead and the photograph they showed was my picture of him in the motorcade on cbs. That was the first picture they showed. That was because i got it back to the office and processed quickly and they transmitted it quickly and we had a good chance to beat whatever the ap was doing. That picture was used. I stayed in the cop shop, a pressroom from fritz office and told us they would have a lineup in the basement. They brought oswald in, the reporter asked him a question about how about shooting the president. He said, thats ridiculous. He was arrogant saying those kinds of things. They left, i went back upstairs to the pressroom, a two seat pret room outside of fritz office. I stayed there all night, maybe theyre waking him up in the morning and questioning him there, they did not do. I was relieved the following morning and went back to the paper and then i went home. The thing about it i was supposed to be going to National Guard duty. I was planning on going and i just decided i really didnt want to do that it had been such a day, my wife didnt know where i was, at the window with kennedy coming by at a Department Store when they had been on main street driving by. Reports were they didnt know how many people were shot, what was going on. I went home, supposed to go to guard duty the next day. I didnt and stayed home and sat on my bed and watched jack ruby shoot Lee Harvey Oswald. Then, later on, i started going to the Dallas County jail just about everyday. As soon as the trial started i was there for probably 80 of the trial i spent covering the ruby trial, which was basically him being walked in and walked out from the courtroom. Cameras. Remote cameras on the wall so you could see him when hi walked by. And i covered most of the trial. And of course when the verdict was going to be announced, they only took a pool photographer in. One of the things that joe and mel vin used in the trial was this picture of os wald that i had with handcuffs. They printed at seven, eight feet high. Why. I dont know what that had to do with it. They used it. And they in the defense for jack ruby. And so shell was the pool photographer for the verdict. I had also photographed during the course of the ruby trial, i photographed sam ruby, his brother. Photographed his sister. All of them talking to tan hail. If i can jump in. Its interesting we often say that these news photographs that we have here in the archives and we collect are evidence. There was a case of one of your photographs being evidence during a trial. Did you have a sense as the motorcade photo appeared on tv, how historic the image would be . Not until i got to the times herd harold office and found out kennedy had been shot. Of course immediately. Told the president before he got shot, see how much dallas loves you. They had been scared to go to dallas anyway. General walker had a lot of strong support. Ultraconservative support in dallas. People thought he could have been involved in the shooting of the president. There was also one of the things that happened. When somebody shot a hole in the window of general walkers home on turtle creek. Which turned out to be a Lee Harvey Os wald. Who shot a hole in general walkers office. I mean house. You never know exactly what youre doing until you get to the point where if the picture is there you make it. I thought it was interesting that that picture of mine was the first picture that most people saw of the kennedys in dallas. And it was just a situation that they were just driving by. And it just i was in the right place at the right time. I did not get a chance to do anything else but that. Its like i made like two frames of them in dallas. I photographed hard to believe. I started my photograph ri of president of the United States when i was 13 years old. And a sophomore in high school. When general eisenhower who had been elected and inaugurated in october of 1953 he landed at air force base, and which may been called smoky hill by that time. He drove through. When we knew the students at the high school knew that he was coming, they built this huge banner that said welcome ike. He came in an olds mobile convertible. And waving to the people that came by. I was using the school camera. I had been working for the High School Newspaper and yearbook. For two weeks. And i had learned basically how to use the camera and what to do with it. It was a graph lex super d with a hood. You looked in the hood and it was a reflex camera. Which would get you through the lens. You didnt have a lot of opportunity. Because you had to pull dark slides to get the film. You know, advanced so you can make picture. It had two shutters. You had to make sure the shutters were open when you made the picture. So when he came back i got one picture of him waving. And thats the only picture i made. And then of course it was used later on in the High School Paper and the yearbook. But used in a lot of places later on. But i didnt realize when i photographed eisenhower in 1953, that i would then in tune photograph the rest of the president s through obama. And also photograph harry trueman. So, at what point did you when you were younger, did you know thats what you wanted to do . That photograph ri. After the eisenhower picture. It worked for me. And i might as well stay with it and see what i could do. It became a little bit interesting about how i finally got there. I went to kansas state. I had a degree in technical journalism. Kansas state has produced a great number of very good photographers. Kansas state does not offer a course of any kind in photography. Worked for the newspaper and work for the yearbook. And the way you learn to make pictures is make pictures. Thats what i did. I was stringing for the apupi. The capitol general of star and times. So i was stringing for people. I was shoot pictures features on campus. At k state. I would then transmit them to upi. I would do that as late as possible. First thing i do is make all the prints and put them on buses and i would send them all to the newspaper. And to the ap in kansas city. And then after i know they were on the bus and on the way, i would transmit the picture to upi. So i was making all kinds of prints and doing this stuff. We got paid of course at the time was 5 a picture. So it wasnt like youre getting rich at 5 a picture. Thats what we got paid. It was fun. Thats how i really loved it. I loved shooting the football games, basketball games. And shooting features around kansas state in order to send pictures away. That was what it was about. Just all through my career. I went from dallas to madison, wisconsin. Because Felix Mcknight the publisher ofrt dallas times had decided that since i worked for upi in contracted to the times harold. If i had made the picture of jack ruby shooting lee harvey that bob jackson made. Or willy allen had made or bill beel made it. They couldnt call it dallas times harold photo. So they had a meeting with the upi people and we went out and they fired us all. The thing about that which it was obviously in the works because two days before that the chief photographer at the dallas times called me into his office and says, if youre not working for upi, would you work for me . Of course i had no idea at all why i wouldnt be working for upi. I said sure. I would be glad to. It turned out i got fired by upi. Went back told john i had been fired and he says you have a job. And next morning i started working for the dallas times harold. Which i did for about eight months until upi said we have an opening in wisconsin. So thats when i went to madison. That was about 1964 . Is that right . I went in 64. Right. I want to jump ahead a bit. You talk about a couple president s. Let me ask you, we have another photograph in the exit thats a president jimmy carter. At the camp david accord. What was that experience like. Do you remember . On the day that it happened, my wife birthday is the 12th of september. If im sure this was the 17th of september. And the thing was that john full was a upi photo editor and photographer. Who worked weekends. And this was on a saturday or sunday. Im sure it was a sunday. He called and said theyre coming down from the mountain and have a press conference in thes room. We can only have one photographer in the east room. So go. So i grabbed all my gear and grabbed my stuff and headed to the white house. Went in and got in. They took us into the east room. When we got there, here we were one person per organization. Ap had two. Time magazine had two. News week magazine had two. And the thing about it the israels. The egyptians they all had two or three. I was literally the lone person for upi. So when i was standing there looking at what was going to happen, i decided that i didnt want to stand straight in the middle because it was when they signed the accord they were going to be way too far apart. So i did what i usually did. And i moved way down into the end. Of the press riser. So i could look back and when they signed it, they were kind of compressed a bit. Compressed. And then when they the embrace came, and the jimmy smiling. Was the fact it happened so that he was in front of the israel flag. And in front of the egyptian flag. And carter was beside him. It was a very tight. Some of the people later on who had been in the middle had a quote multiple three way handshake in the middle. Which got play. My picture got the most. It won contests for president ial. It won the picture of the year contest for general news. And it was just because a lot of people made it. I was the only one that had the angle that put it together and made it work. Which is always what i try to do. Try to figure out as you always photographers who worked for the at the white house in washington will all tell you that the big thing was being where you have to be at right time with the right lens in your hand. To do what you have to do. Which is what we did. One of the things that strikes me about the story is im sure some of the folks who were in the room who were representatives. We have the collections here too. How competitive was your relationship with some of the other photo journalists . Youre very competitive. Youre more. Competition is what its all about. We have people that are here that i competed wd who didnt work for the wire service. As i did at the time. I worked for upi. The ap photographers were very competitive. So were the photographers for the magazines and newspaper. My whole goal was to as upi, was to get my picture on the front page of the Washington Post. It didnt matter they have photographers there. The new york times. I wanted to get my picture on the front page of all these things. That was what it was all about. You were there to try to out shoot everybody there. And if you happen to be on a job and they out shot you and their picture was in the paper the next day and you werent, you had congratulate them and say you did a nice job yesterday. It was really nice picture. And you bert bring your lunch it will be a long day today. Which was what it was all about. Lets fast forward a bit. And talk about you putting your archive here at whats now the center. How did that come to be . How is it your collection ended up here . It came to be because donated his archive. When stanly was a photographer for upi who worked later on for look magazine, and made all the behind the scenes kennedy pictures and john under the desk. Stanly had be with upi for quite a while. And went to look magazine. While he was at look, he worked a lot with kitty kelly. Who had written a lot of all kinds of tell all books and what have you. They were a couple. I dont know what kind of couple. But they were a couple. The thing about it is, i was at the u. S. Who i was working for. And kelly came in. She met with hopkins who was the secretary for the publisher of u. S. Report. And she asked me to come up and kelly said what should i do with him . We have all of stanlies images, what should i do with them . Do a book and donate them to somebody that can archive them, handle them for you, thats not some photo agency thats out there trying to sell everything. Then thats what this about. To donate something here. Where they can archive it to the point its going to be preserved. If you have a flood, if you have a tornado. The odds are the images are going to be fine. Here. When i was at kansas state for a hundredth anniversary for the j school there. The wanted to know why i wouldnt donate to them. I said because you dont have the ar kooifl facility here to do it. You dont have the space. And i says and you really as far as i was concerned they didnt have the facility that could do it. Of course they got gordon parks archive from his family. And he had great movies and great still pictures. And they had a flood in the building where the pipes burst. And a lot of gordon parks film, movies and images were ruined in the flood. And thats because they have the real Old Buildings that are there that were built 1r50 years ago. And theyre infrastructure doesnt work too well. And it was one of those things that i personally couldnt see giving it to k state. Because i didnt know what they would really do with it. And i knew what they would do with it here. I told my wife who is very active in what im trying to do in getting this done. I said i dont want to die and leave this stuff for you here. At home. In 60 poxes and you wont have the foggiest idea of what to do with it. So one of the other things thats important in our collection is we have all of the contemporaries. Colleagues and the like. Whats the value of having all of these materials in one place . Its exactly what its all about. If somebody wants it, its all here. They can compare it. Look at it. And see what is there. And what people can use or what they want to do. Its strictly the center has got so many images. And they can decide which ones they want and which ones they dont. And i think they do a good job of archiving this stuff. My wife couldnt, if i hadnt spent five hours going through boxes in my house or two days. It would have been crazy. Plus i kept sending her more and more stuff. But i didnt want to die or leave my wife and kid they wouldnt have the foggiest idea what to do with it. Thats something that has to be done. Thats whats wrong with a lot of photographers in our business now. They have no idea what to do with the stuff they have. And i just talking to dick swansons wife. And she says its the same thing. We have the boxes and figure out what were going to do in order to get them out. Of course his archive is here also. The point was it had to be done. Because you cant leave it for your kids. Because they really have no idea. Its like they know what you did with your life, but they dont know what to do with the stuff they have. Entering your great example. Your career amazing example you menti