Mark,
This won't help you with your interesting project. But, I remember
the day vividly. I was at the Imperial College in London, on leave
from Princeton University to do research. My wife called me from home
saying that she had heard that Kennedy had been shot in Dallas. We
knew little else at the time. As I walked to the Underground that
evening, I picked up a copy of an "Extra" the Evening Standard had
published. It too had little information. The next day, much was
clear. We began getting letters of condolence from the parents of our
children's friends and classmates. One said, "Kennedy was our
President too!" and expressed remorse at his loss. That weekend, the
embankment around the US Embassy was covered with flowers, with more
arriving by the minute. The line of people waiting to sign a
condolence book in the embassy was blocks long. We gave up waiting.
I remain touched by the sentiment expressed by the Brits. My children
(5), then aged 5 yrs. to 10 1/2 yrs. have vaguer memories!
Photography was a thing I did as a tourist, or as a researcher in the
laboratory, at that time. It never occurred to me to try to document
what we saw or what was happening around us. If I did, one of my
children has them, after promising to organize them somehow!
Roger
On 20 Mar 2008, at 8:25 AM, Marilyn Dalrymple wrote:
----- Original Message -----
From: Mark Blackwell
To: List for Photo/Imaging Educators - Professionals - Students
Sent: Wednesday, March 19, 2008 9:03 PM
Subject: Project I am working on and I like opinions an input
"Well one of the earliest memories I have was the death of
President Kennedy. Born in 58, I was very young at the time, but in
many ways those memories are like yesterday. I happen to live now
not too far from Dealy Plaza and the idea came to me about a
photographic project to use that plaza not as a ending to a study,
but a beginning. Its a beginning of a photographic study to
hopefully put an interesting take on the passage of 45 years."
Mark Blackwell
***
Your idea sounds fascinating Mark and my personal opinion is that
your subject does speak to the subject of photography. Your idea
has ignited thoughts about similar projects concerning events in
each of our respective locations.
I'd approach it as a "Man on the Street," project and interview
people at that particular location today. I'd ask them if they
remember the day Kennedy was shot and how they got the information
about the tragedy that forms their memories, i.e. from hearing
people talk about it? Reading or seeing film documentaries? Were
they there (what a find for your project that would be).
If you could find photographs of the area taken 45 years ago and
duplicate the exact locations in your photographs taken today - that
would be interesting.
I was sitting in a classroom the day it happened. When we first
got the announcement - a student came running through the classroom
door and breathlessly made the announcement that Kennedy was dead -
no one believed him. We all thought it was some kind of a sick joke.
My parents were of stiff-upper-lip English stock, but I found both
crying freely when I got home that day.
Marilyn
