AP's White House Senior Photographer Ron Edmonds Takes Buy-Out

 

By Donald R. Winslow
© 2009 News Photographer magazine

WASHINGTON, DC (July 23, 2009) – In the 28 years he's covered the White House for the Associated Press, senior photographer Ron Edmonds says he's pretty much "seen it all," but now it's time for some serious bass fishing.

"It's been a good run, I can't complain. I've been in the front row for a lot of history," Edmonds said today from the White House briefing room. "The Berlin Wall coming down, 9/11, there's been a little piece of it all. I'm leaving with absolutely no regrets."

Edmonds, who announced this week that he was taking one of the many buy-outs AP is offering staff, said he had thought about retiring last year but that when he saw that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama "had a chance to win" he decided to stay on. "I wanted to be here for this," he said today.

Now 63, the 1982 Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist had thought he would retire at 65 and possibly make a move south.

"It was a hard choice, but AP offered a good buy-out with some fairly decent enhancements, and we get to keep our health care, which is a huge thing."

With the buy-outs, AP created a new opportunity for Edmonds that hadn't been part of the original plan. The Edmonds have a daughter who is in law school at the University of North Carolina with two more years to go, and he had planned on working until she graduates. But in a surprise move, his 86-year-old mother-in-law paid off the Edmonds' home mortgage. "With the monthly expenses gone, and all of our friends here, we'll probably stay in the DC area," he said today. "I can still do some freelancing now, with no more house payment."

"Ron is the consummate White House professional photojournalist," AP photography director Santiago Lyon said today from New York.

"He's experienced, courteous to a fault, open, warm, he's a natural teacher, and in the last few years in his role as the chief White House photographer for us he's done a great deal to improve our coverage as well as mentoring a younger generation of photographers in the subtleties of political coverage in Washington, where position and an understanding of what's going to happen is crucial. This, on the heels of a long and very successful, prestigious career as a photographer, capped – perhaps – by his Pulitzer. On the one hand, I'm sad to see him go. On the other hand, I'm happy for him that he gets to start his retirement and enjoy his time with friends, and especially ... fishing," Lyon said.

Edmonds' last day at the White House for AP will be Monday, but he's staying on as a contract consultant to AP and shooting until mid-August. "The buy-outs were all figured on a date (the 22nd) and they couldn't recalculate them all, so Monday's my last day, but I get to stay on a bit more as a 'consultant,' so I can put that on my resume too!", he laughed.

He won the Pulitzer Prize for news photography for his pictures of a routine presidential departure from a speaking event when John Hinkley Jr. shot President Ronald Reagan on March 30, 1981 outside the Washington Hilton. "I heard the pops," Edmonds said. "I shot six frames with a camera that shoots six frames per second and there were only three frames where the president was actually in the picture. We really didn't know he'd been shot until the car pulled away that I thought, 'Gosh,' ... ". Of Hinkley's six shots, the one bullet that didn't hit anything or anybody when right over Edmonds' head and landed across the street.

When Edmonds made the decision to retire from AP, he sent this gracious eMail to his friends and colleagues:

After twenty-eight years of covering the White House for the Associated Press, I have decided to retire and spend some time with my family.  I know you usually hear this excuse from politicians who have just been caught with their hands in the cookie jar or with a high-priced companion; but, in this instance, spending time with my family is my true reason, ok maybe a little fishing as well.  

I have had one of the most fantastic jobs in the world.  It has allowed me to work with some of the greatest journalists in the world and to make images of some of the biggest events in the last thirty years. I hope that in some small way, I have helped the Associated Press maintain its prominence as the number-one news organization.

I will never forget the experiences that I have been allowed to take part in:  such as, walking through the Forbidden City in China or walking around Red Square with Ronald Reagan; ducking behind an inadequate rock in the Iranian desert as Iraqi artillery shells exploded around us;  or, more pleasantly, drinking lemonade with King Hussein and Queen Noor at their  summer home in Aqaba, Jordan; and boating down the Nile and strolling  through the Valley of the Kings in Egypt with then-Vice President Bush.

I have spent many sleepless nights mulling over this decision. It is difficult to leave my many friends here and around the world at the Associated Press. But I have great hopes for a continued bright future for the AP.  I leave with no trepidation but rather with a heart full of confidence that our younger generation of talented AP photographers, such as Charles Dharapak among others, will fill the void with a better and stronger report than ever before.

I have been lucky enough to win a couple of small awards for my work. But perhaps one of the most rewarding still was when my daughter Ashley came home from elementary school one day and announced that she was so proud, because that day she was able to raise her hand and tell the teacher that the picture on the front of her Weekly Reader was taken by her dad.

I will miss all of my friends, especially those editors on the desk of the Washington bureau, who very rarely get the credit they deserve for wading through my many images to put me on the front pages of newspapers and web pages around the world. It has always been a team effort in Washington.

Thanks to all of you for making me look good.

Regards,

Ron Edmonds
Senior White House Photographer
Associated Press

 

 

 

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