U.S. commemorative postage stamp of JFK a career feat for photographer
Ted Spiegel
of Fishkill, New York; Photo on stamp taken in Seattle, 1960.
By Jack Howland, Poughkeepsie
(New York) Journal Nov 20, 2017
Then-presidential nominee John F.
Kennedy had begun to tilt his head upward, a hopeful expression on his face, as
if posing for the now-famous historical portrait and postage stamp this moment
would become.
The photographer was having a camera
problem.
Standing in Seattle’s Victory Square,
his right eye pressed to the viewfinder of his Leica, Ted Spiegel couldn’t
adjust his focus.
As Kennedy looked toward screaming fans
leaning out of windows overhead, Spiegel started lunging his body, trying to
move until his subject came into focus.
The 82-year-old Fishkill resident
remembers ducking, bobbing and flailing, eager to get the shot for his job as a
Washington state photographer in 1960.
When Kennedy's image in his viewfinder crystallized,
he snapped the picture. Click.
“It was a moment of absorption,”
Spiegel said of the September 1960 picture, taken in the early stages of a
presidential election, as the country was dealing with the Cold War and a
debate on civil rights. “He’s on this platform, literally enveloped in support…
and he embodies the aspirations of the nation.”
The then-26-year-old still could have
never imagined Kennedy himself would use the image as a signing portrait as
president, and he certainly didn't imagine it would grace envelopes all
over the world beginning Tuesday as a United States Postal Service forever
commemorative stamp.
A ceremony at the John F. Kennedy
Presidential Library and Museum in Boston Monday was a celebration ahead of its
first day in post offices Tuesday. On Sunday, Spiegel made the long
drive with his wife of 50 years, Signy Spiegel.
Among those at the unveiling ceremony
was Postmaster General Megan J. Brennan.Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA);Rep. Joe Kennedy
III (D-MA), and John F. Kennedy Library Foundation Executive Director Steven
Rothstein, according to a press release from the US Postal Service.
“In the American people he served,
President Kennedy discovered a fearless optimism and extraordinary empathy.
Despite divisions and differences, he believed every citizen shared an
unbreakable, common bond to push an imperfect country towards justice and
progress. This stamp will not only commemorate the centennial of his birth, but
the values that make this country strong, fair and kind,” said Rep. Kennedy in
the release.
JFK's birthday was May 29, 1917.
The highly selective honor — only 25
images are picked each year — is a career-capping achievement for the
photographer who has filled books with images of his voyages through the
roaming Hudson Valley, and who has taken photos in the 50 states and more
than 50 countries, many of them for National Geographic.
“This is significant,” said George
Flood, spokesperson for the United States Postal Service northeast area.
“Postage stamps are like small works of art that serve as calling cards that
talk about what the U.S. is about.”
The process of selecting new
commemorative stamps begins with roughly 30,000 suggestions, sent in from
people across the country.
From there, a committee comprised of
intellectuals like educators, artists and writers narrow that down to 25 iconic
images. Members are hand-picked by the postmaster general, and its alumni include
former college basketball coach Digger Phelps and Academy Award winning actor
Ernest Borgnine.
Once the postmaster general gives final
approval on the stamps, they’re set to be sent out into the world, causing
millions to reflect on and remember, if even for a brief moment, their
subjects.
“To see Kennedy live on in a stamp is
exciting personally as well as professionally,” said Flood, a longtime JFK
admirer. “I can still remember as a little kid the day he was sworn in,
watching on a little black and white TV.”
Spiegel pointed out this isn’t the
photo’s first milestone and one of his proudest feats came when Bobby Kennedy
claimed the image as his favorite portrait of his older brother. It also
continues to be used in promotional images for the John F. Kennedy Presidential
Library and Museum.
But he acknowledged the postage
stamp status is something entirely different, namely because it’s an example of
why he got into photography — to immortalize moments.
“As a photojournalist, you have the
opportunity to capture time,” Spiegel said. “You have the opportunity to
capture moments and share them into the future.”
He was only 10 years old when he knew
he wanted to do just that. On his birthday that year, he had gotten a Speed
Graphic camera, oft-referred to as the original press camera, with an
accordion-esque base and an overlarge bulb.
After a stint as a soldier stationed in
Alaska, Spiegel began pursuing his passion on magazine assignments that took
him all over the country, from his dispatches to the Adirondacks to
photographing the effects of air pollution to his reports on urban life in
Kansas City, Philadelphia and Boston.
He met his wife while on assignment for
National Geographic in the Virgin islands in 1966, and six weeks later the
two were married in Seattle.
Although he continues to take
photos along the Hudson River and write about upstate New
York's history, he knows the Kennedy portrait might have the most
longevity. And he's OK with that.
He’s OK if part of his legacy is that
day in Seattle, with the Olympic Hotel looming in the background and all those
adoring fans just out of frame. Like the best photojournalism, he said, it was
a spontaneous moment of emotion, and had a much larger impact after the fact.
It’s also a stark contrast to Kennedy’s
widely discussed presidential portrait, where his arms are crossed and he’s
looking down.
The photo, in Spiegel’s eyes, is like
those inkblot paintings that allow people to project their own personality into
the work. He, for instance, sees a hopeful figure and a “transfer of energy”
with the American people, though he notes that's only one reading.
He's excited that a lot more
people will now get to decide what it means to them.
“I hope this picture will evoke many
thoughts,” Spiegel said, “that will stay within the person who’s putting the
stamp on the envelope.”
# End of article from the Poughkeepsie
(New York) Journal #
:::
POSTSCRIPT 1:
Ted Spiegel said of the
photograph of John F. Kennedy he took on Sept. 6, 1960, in Seattle:
"Taking leave from Army
Reserve duty, I was credentialed as the freelance photographer representing the
State of Washington's Department of Commerce and Economic Development. I had
equal access to scramble onto the speaker's platform with the White House
pack."
Source: 2021 book "Right Place, Right Time, by Ted Spiegel: A Photojournalist’s Search for Storytelling Photographs," by Joshua Korenblat.
POSTSCRIPT 2:
In the same year, 1960, but a different month (February on the 11th) John F. Kennedy, presidential candidate, gave an address in Bryan Hall on the WSU campus in Pullman. Link to photo below:
https://content.libraries.wsu.edu/digital/collection/pullman/id/2205/rec/7
Photo credit: Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries.
