Kennerly modestly refers to himself as a ‘political photographer.’ That’s true, as far as it goes. But it’s like calling Matthew Brady a ‘war photographer’ or Thomas Eakins a ‘Philadelphia portrait painter.” Kennerly is as good as it gets in a craft he defined.”
-HOWARD FINEMAN Global Editor, Huffington Post Media Group
David Hume Kennerly has been a photographer on the front lines of history for more than fifty 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 and Cambodia wars, refugees escaping from East Pakistan into India, and the Ali v. Frazier “Fight of the Century” World Heavyweight Championship at Madison Square Garden. Two years later Kennerly was appointed President Gerald R. Ford's Personal White House photographer.
Kennerly’s photos have appeared on more than 50 major magazine covers, and he has documented history in over a hundred countries. He has photographed ten United States Presidents, covered twelve presidential campaigns, served as a contributing editor for Newsweek magazine for ten years, and a contributing photographer for Time & Life Magazines for more than fifteen. American Photo Magazine named Kennerly “One of the 100 Most Important People in Photography”, and Washingtonian Magazine called Kennerly one of the 50 most important journalists in Washington, DC. His work has been exhibited widely and he maintains a busy publishing, appearance and lecture schedule.
In 2019, The University of Arizona Center for Creative Photography that was founded by Ansel Adams acquired the David Hume Kennerly Archive. The vast archive features almost one million images, prints, objects, memorabilia, correspondence and documents dating back to 1957. The Kennerly Archive includes iconic portraits of U.S. presidents, world leaders, celebrities and unknown individuals, as well as personal correspondence and mementos such as the helmet and cameras that Kennerly used while photographing the Vietnam War. His work will join that of Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Richard Avedon, W. Eugene Smith, and scores of other legendary photographers. University of Arizona President Robert C. Robbins appointed Kennerly the university’s first Presidential Scholar.
Kennerly marked the 50th anniversary of his professional career covering the 2016 presidential campaign for POLITICO and CNN. His 2015 photo essay of the presidential primary season, “I want to Be with the Circus”, was one of the most widely viewed stories in Politico’s history. His campaign coverage for CNN brought him behind the scenes at major events for both the Clinton and Trump campaigns, including with the winner on election night. Kennerly is a major contributor to the CNN book, Unprecedented: The Election that Changed Everything, and his cover photo of President Trump taken for the book during an exclusive portrait session two weeks after the election, earned Kennerly a late-night Trump tweet which stated: “CNN just released a book called ‘Unprecedented’ which explores the 2016 race & victory. Hope it does well but used worst cover photo of me.”
Kennerly is the author of six books - David Hume Kennerly On the iPhone, Shooter, Photo Op, 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’s fine art photographic prints have been exhibited and collected by museums, corporate entities and individuals around the world. Exhibitions include The Smithsonian Institution, The Annenberg Space for Photography, The Portland Art Museum, Houston Center for Photography, Savannah College of Art and Design in Lacoste France, The University of Southern California, The University of Texas, and a career retrospective at Visa Pour L’Image in Perpignan, France. His work from Vietnam was featured in the War/Photography: Images of Armed Conflict and Its Aftermath, curated by Anne Wilkes Tucker for the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, and Kennerly was featured in the original short documentary, The War Photographers produced as a companion to the exhibit by the Annenberg Space for Photography. Kennerly prints have been collected by the Library of Congress, National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian and more, including corporations, hotels, restaurants and individuals.
He also maintains a busy appearance and speaking schedule, including on-air commentary, corporate keynotes, academic lecturing and speeches for professional organizations, conferences and panels. Appearances have included The Newseum, Boston Museum of Fine Arts, The Entertainment Gathering in Monterey (EG), Aspen Ideas Festival, The Sea Island Creativity Conference, TED-x Bend, CEO Summit, and Bank of America's board meetings and Student Leadership Summit. He is also sought-after academic presenter and speaks regularly at universities, colleges and libraries, including Stanford, University of Southern California, Harvard’s Kennedy School and Yale’s upcoming symposium on Conflict Photography. He presented the 2015 Commencement speech at Lake Erie College where he received an honorary doctorate. Kennerly is a member of Canon’s Legends program, an elite group of photographers who lecture at photography events and forums.
Kennerly works extensively in commercial and advertising photography. He has a longstanding relationship with Bank of America, for which he photographs the organization’s extensive social responsibility programs, in addition to creating executive portraits and special event photography. Utilizing the same documentary approach that he uses to photograph world events and their leaders, Kennerly has created a vast archive for Bank of America that documents their corporate culture and international presence over nearly a decade. Kennerly also partners with Bank of America in speaking appearances for their leadership and the public. Additional corporate clients having included The Home Depot, The Girl Scouts of America, eBay, New York Presbyterian Hospital, Vital Voices, the Points of Light Foundation and others. His documentary-style photography and strong focus on portraiture provides corporations and nonprofits with powerful tools for telling their stories. His images have been used in multiple applications from major advertising campaigns to internal documents to fine art décor – even appearing on billboards and the sides of buildings. His most published photographs may be those that appeared over several years on millions of Girl Scout cookie boxes!
Kennerly has an extensive film and TV background. He was executive producer for The Spymasters, a 2015 CBS/Showtime documentary about the directors of the CIA. In 2013 he was producer of The Presidents’ Gatekeepers, a four-hour Discovery Channel documentary about White House chiefs of staff. Both projects were in association with the Emmy Award-winning team of Gedeon and Jules Naudet and writer and producer Chris Whipple. A directing graduate of the American Film Institute’s Center for Advanced Film and Television Studies, Kennerly was nominated for a Primetime Emmy as executive producer of NBC’s, The Taking of Flight 847, and was the writer and executive producer of a two-hour NBC pilot, Shooter, starring Helen Hunt and Alan Ruck, was based on his Vietnam experiences as a combat photographer. Shooter won the Emmy for Outstanding Cinematography. He executive produced the Academy Award short-listed documentary, Portraits of a Lady for HBO directed by Neil Leifer and starring former Justice of the Supreme Court Sandra Day O’Conner. He also was executive producer of Bucksville, a film shot in Portland featuring Academy Award-nominated actor Tom Berenger. Kennerly is featured in the 2012 BBC documentary The Scot who Shot the Civil War about photographer Alexander Gardner. He directed a television commercial starring former New York City Mayor Ed Koch for New York Presbyterian Hospital.
In 2014, Youngstown State University in Youngstown, Ohio established the David Hume Kennerly endowed scholarship for students of the visual arts. In 2015 he was recipient of the prestigious Lucie Award for achievement in photojournalism. That same year Kennerly received an honorary doctorate from Lake Erie College and was their commencement speaker.
Kennerly covered the 2020 presidential campaign right up until it was truncated by Covid. He was at the White House on July 4, 2021 for their first public event after the pandemic and photographed President Joe Biden presiding over the event.
In 2024 Kennerly, a trustee of the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation for decades, resigned because of their refusal to award former Congresswoman Liz Cheney the annual Gerald R. Ford Medal for Public Policy. He felt that if anyone deserved the honor it was the courageous Ms. Cheney. He also said that if the President and Mrs. Ford were alive they would agree. Shortly after leaving the Ford Foundation Kennerly was named a trustee of the Ansel Adams Publishing Trust where he and the other two trustees protect the legacy of Ansel Adams.
Also in 2024 Kennerly photographed both the Republican and Democratic political conventions for Politico, and was in Washington, DC at Howard University election night when Vice President Kamala Harris lost and photographed her delivering a concession speech.
Kennerly Overview: click to view
Books: click to view
Selected Awards: click to view
Exhibitions: click to view
Keynote and Speaking: click to view
Additional Information: click to view
David Kennerly once said to me, ‘In photography everything can be taught, except how to see.’ In his photographs… we see people and historical events through the keen, alert eye of an eminent camera artist.”
- HERMAN WOUK, Author of “The Winds of War”
“David Hume Kennerly is like Forrest Gump, except he was really there.”
-- JAMES EARL JONES