David Hume Kennerly has been a photographer on the front lines of history for over sixty years. At 25 he was one of the youngest winners of the Pulitzer Prize in Journalism. Kennerly’s 1972 award for Feature Photography included images of the Vietnam War, refugees escaping from East Pakistan into India, and the Ali v. Frazier “Fight of the Century.” Two years later Kennerly was appointed President Gerald R. Ford’s personal White House photographer.
Kennerly’s photos have appeared on dozens of major magazine covers and he has documented history in over a hundred countries. He has photographed eleven U.S. presidents, covered twelve presidential campaigns, was a contributing editor for Newsweek magazine and a contributing photographer for both TIME and LIFE Magazines. American Photo Magazine named Kennerly, “One of the 100 Most Important People in Photography.”
Kennerly is the author of six books – Shooter, Photo Op, David Hume Kennerly On the iPhone, Seinoff: The Final Days of Seinfeld, Photo du Jour, and Extraordinary Circumstances: The Presidency of Gerald R. Ford. He also produced, “Barack Obama: The Official Inaugural Book” and was one of its principal photographers. Kennerly is writing and editing his sixty years of photography book that will be published in 2026 by Rizzoli. An exhibition based on the work will premiere in the new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library https://www.trlibrary.com/ in Medora, North Dakota in the fall of 2026. It will be their first guest presentation, and is sponsored by Bank of America. https://about.bankofamerica.com/en
He received the prestigious Lucie Award https://lucies.org/jury/david-hume-kennerly/ honoring the greatest achievement in photojournalism and that year delivered the commencement speech at Lake Erie College where he received an honorary doctorate. Kennerly was nominated for a Primetime Emmy as executive producer of the NBC movie, The Taking of Flight 947: The Uli Derickson Story. Shooter, another NBC movie that Kennerly executive produced and wrote based on his Vietnam experiences, won the Emmy for Best Cinematography.
In 2019 the University of Arizona Center for Creative Photography acquired the David Hume Kennerly Archive featuring almost a million images, prints, objects, memorabilia, correspondence and documents. The Archive includes iconic portraits of U.S. presidents, world leaders, celebrities and other individuals, as well as personal correspondence and mementos. His work joins that of Ansel Adams, who founded the CCP in 1975, Edward Weston, Richard Avedon, W. Eugene Smith, and scores of other legendary photographers. University President Robert C. Robbins appointed Kennerly the school’s first Presidential Scholar. To see a gallery of his work, visit the Kennerly Archive.
In 2024 Kennerly resigned as a trustee of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation after they refused to award former Congresswoman Liz Cheney the Ford Medal for Public Service.
Kennerly is a senior fellow at the USC Center on Communication Leadership and Policy (CCLP) https://communicationleadership.usc.edu/fellows/senior-fellows/kennerly/ and frequently lectures for Professor Geoff Cowan’s classes at USC. He is a trustee of the Ansel Adams Publishing Trust and chairman of the Photojournalism Archive Project. https://www.photojournalismarchive.org/ Kennerly is also a Canon Legend, https://www.usa.canon.com/explore/canon-legends one of an elite group of photographers sponsored by Canon.
Contact David Hume Kennerly at commlead@usc.ed