Jackie and Jack kennedy photo booth circa 1953-2015 Metal Print

"Can anyone understand how it is to have lived in the White House and then, suddenly, to be living alone as the President's widow?"

'I don't understand it. Jack will spend any amount of money to buy votes but he balks at investing a thousand dollars in a beautiful painting."

"I want to live my life, not record it." - Jackie Kennedy,1929-1994

"When power leads man toward arrogance, poetry reminds him of his limitations. When power narrows the area of man's concern, poetry reminds him of the richness and diversity of existence. When power corrupts, poetry cleanses."

"If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision wherever it takes him."

"The world is very different now. For man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty, and all forms of human life."

"Those who dare to fail miserably can achieve greatly." - John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963

I first became obsessed with photography and motion pictures while growing up in post WW2 Manila in the Philippine Islands in the late 1940's/early 1950's. Film noirs were a particular influence. But my first love remains the theater. I acted in numerous amateur productions from 1958 to 1978. In 1979 I earned a MA in drama from the University of Arizona; earlier getting a BA in English from the University of Minnesota, where I co-founded the first film society on campus and ran it for four years. While at the U of A, I studied with the master black and white photo essayist W. Eugene Smith (1918-1978) the last year of his life. I am the last person cited in Jim Hughes' definitive biography of Gene, as I wrote about attending his final...