A photographer's legacy..

What is the role, and place, of a photographer in today's society?  What is our legacy?  Does the fire ever really leave the eye of a photographer?

Believe it or not the photographer who was my absolute idol had nothing to do with horses.  He was Jacques Lowe, the personal photographer to President John Fitzgerald Kennedy and his family.  JFK is another idol of mine (and of many).  My parents, who are both academic types and politically astute, had a photobook called "Four Days in November", detailing photographically the events of that terrible day on 22 November 1963.  I remember the book vividly and even at  young age, the  power of these photographs.  It led me to ask my parents about the assassination, and they both had the same comment, that the whole world stopped that day, and that they could remember where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news. It's probably that book which sparked the facsination I developed in JFK as I got older.

This year will mark the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination. I have a copy of the book referred to in the pieces below.  It is called "Remembering Jack" by Jacques Lowe and it is a wonderful photographic book.  I had a special friend whom I always wanted to sit with on the lounge, with a glass of red wine, and look through the book together.  The images in this book are special to  me and I wanted to look through it with someone who would really 'get' the significance of them with me.  This didn't ever happen, and I'm sad about that.

Remembering Jack is filled with intimate images of an iconic person.  The images were taken with incredible skill and sensitivity.  Every now and again I get the book out and look through it, then moodily pace my house, thinking did I miss my calling and should I have travelled overseas and tried to become a White House Photographer?  Clearly I have an interest in politics and America.  I studied Political Science and did quite a bit of American politics and history.  And one of my favourite TV shows was "The West Wing".  And these urges are stronger when you have someone charismatic and determined like Barack Obama in the White House who's currently showing such courage to tackle the appalling issue of guns in America.

I didn't ever do this, and there are times when this frustrates me.  But I am fortunate to work with wonderful horses and amongst great people.  John Messara, Chairman of Racing NSW and owner of Arrowfield Stud, wrote this about my work:

"Some photographs, including her 2009 headshot of Redoute's Choice ... have become defining images for individual stallions.  Bronwen has a fine eye for special moments and unusual angles that are missed by other photographers".

Do I become emotionally involved, and attached to, my equine subjects?  Absolutely!!  Do I try to get to know them and understand them?  Without question!!!  Do I love the special ones I get to know that little bit better?  Nearly all of the time!!!  This wouldn't ever imply that I owned them or that I thought that they belonged to me.  It is true that I sometimes remark tongue in cheek about a horse as 'my Pony' or 'my Filly or 'my Boy'.  An example of this is the stallions I photograph for Arrowfield Stud.  I always fondly refer to them as "my Boys".  

My legacy should be the creation of a defining image (or set of images) that will become the standout in people's minds when the public at large pause to remember an individual horse.  Whenever I am at a low ebb, or feel my self confidence has dropped, I might question what it is I have chosen to become good at.  But being a photographer, and one who is great at photographing special horses, is who I am, and what I do.  I like to think that all photographers feel this way, and no matter how low we get from time to time, that we will continue to strive to produce great images, just because that is what we do best.

Lowe's photographic style in doing this work clearly resonates with me, because my own comfort zone and skill also lies in this 'fly on the wall' approach.  In being non invasive and observing rather than directing.  It is a style that developed probably due to fluctuating self confidence levels and I've always been happier just to operate stealthily in the background.  It's an odd thing, because I am confident in directing a stallion manager to direct a huge stallion how I want him, but far less comfortable about directing people how I might like them to look.  But aside from this I find that there's an honesty in a spontaneously captured image as well, when the person is caught in their world, rather than in a world you are trying to 'construct'.

Below are some of the iconic images I spoke of that Jacques Lowe took.  And below them are some write ups on Lowe, his legacy and the Kennedy library, not to mention the appalling loss of those treasured negatives shortly after Lowe himself died, in the horror that was 9/11.  I should pause to mention that it was not a complete loss, as Lowe had kept all the proof sheets and there were a large number of prints already taken from some of the negatives, and due to advances in scanning technology they were able to retrieve some of the work.  But nothing can ever, ever, compensate for the loss of those precious original negatives.

Black Caviar and Luke Nolen stride to victory

One of John Messara's favourite images I have taken of his great stallion Redoute's Choice

Redoute's Choice.  This image has been widely used now across Australia and now in France by The Aga Khan.

The Lady Trainer..  Gai Waterhouse.  She loves this image, and used it on her book.

Happier Days?  The great champion So You Think at trackwork before he was 'taken' from racing in Australia.  Les Carlyon loves this image.  Of course So You Think achieved great things in Europe, but I always missed him here.

Mr James Bartholomew Cummings in 2008.

Jacques Lowe - some of the images of JKF in the book I own, called "Remembering Jack"

Photo by Jacques Lowe

Bobby Kennedy, Jackie Kennedy and Teddy Kennedy arrive for the funeral.  Jacques Lowe.

Jacques Lowes Website

Jacques Lowes JFK Gallery

A Lost Legacy
By Frank Van Riper
Special to Camera Works

There was yet another tragedy in the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, though it did not involve the loss of human life. 

It involved instead the loss of a huge and historic photographic archive that, until Sept. 11 and the unknowable horror of that day, had been widely believed to be protected from all harm, impervious to all damage.
Photographer Jacques Lowe's immense record from the Kennedy administration – an archive of more than 40,000 mostly black and white negatives, including some of the best known images from that era – is lost and presumed destroyed in the smoldering ruins of Ground Zero. Lowe, who died of prostate cancer last May at age 71, had stored his cache of negs, valued at more than $2 million, in the underground vaults of J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. at 5 World Trade Center, secure in the knowledge that the most precious of his life's work was safe.

Lowe's archive included images that have become icons to people who appreciate the kind of fly-on-the-wall photojournalism that Lowe practiced with a master's hand and eye.

They include beautifully composed images of Jack and Jacqueline Kennedy during Kennedy's uphill campaign for the 1960 Democratic presidential nomination and his subsequent race for the White House against Republican Richard Nixon:

– Pictures of Jack, his tiny campaign plane off to the side of an equally tiny runway, surrounded by the barest handful of aides, in stunning contrast to the flying circus of campaigns today

– Jack and Jackie sitting in the window of a nondescript – yet quintessentially American – diner, Jackie sipping her morning coffee while Jack confers with someone across from him.

Beautiful moments, beautifully captured in black and white available light.

By Bob Brown 

Ultimately, to keep the negatives secure, Lowe had stored them in a safe. The location he chose was in the World Trade Center complex — 5 World Trade Center — a nine-story building on the northeast corner of the plaza. The building was severely damaged and had to be demolished following the attacks on the twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001. Lowe's priceless records of one tragic era were buried in the havoc of another.

After months of uncertainty following the cleanup effort on the Trade Center site, Thomasina Lowe was informed that her father's safe had been recovered from the rubble, and she was given an appointment to inspect what remained of the safe.
"It was very hard for me on that day to not have hope that I would recover something," she said. "I wanted to be optimistic."

But because of fires that had smoldered in the complex for days after the attacks, the contents of the metal safes had been subjected to the equivalent of a 2,000 degree furnace for several days, according to a spokeperson for J.P. Morgan Chase.
Jacques Lowe's safe was empty, with only a few ashes inside, barely enough to sweep into a small bag.