Stan Stearns, who photographed John F. Kennedy Jr.’s coffin salute at JFK funeral, has died
A metal sculpture of Stan Stearns’ iconic photo of a young John F. Kennedy, Jr. saluting his father’s casket stands among the floral tributes and other items placed at the memorial to John Jr. outside his Tribeca apartment building after his 1999 death.
Stan Stearns, who took the iconic picture of John F. Kennedy Jr. saluting his father's coffin during the slain president's 1963 funeral, has died.
Stearns, 76, died Friday at a hospice in Harwood, Maryland, the Associated Press quoted his son Jay Stearns as saying. The cause was cancer, he said.
“One exposure on a roll of 36 exposures,” the Washington Post quoted Stearns as saying of the photo, taken after he was assigned to cover John F. Kennedy's funeral on Nov. 25, 1963, as a photographer for United Press International.
Stearns was one of 70 photographers jammed into a designated area outside the church where the funeral was held, UPI wrote. However, he had the right angle and hit the button at the right moment, according to the wire service — just after Jacqueline Kennedy had leaned down to whisper something to the boy, who then stepped forward and gave the solemn five-second salute on what also happened to be his third birthday.
According to the AP, Stearns later said he learned other photographers missed the picture because they had focused on Jacqueline Kennedy or the president's coffin.
"As the caisson was rolling out to Arlington Cemetery, I asked every photographer I could if they had the salute. Duh! Nobody saw it," Stearns recalled.
So convinced was Stearns that he had a classic captured on film, he skipped the trip to Arlington to return to the darkroom at UPI's Washington bureau, according to UPI.
“The bureau chief almost had a hemorrhage,” Stearns reportedly told the Annapolis Capital in 2009. “I never saw a man turn as white as he did because I was not with the entourage going to Arlington. Then the big boss from New York overheard that and he said, ‘You better have it or you’re fired on the spot.’ ”
Stearns won $25 from UPI for his "Photo of the Month."
The image is one of the most-reproduced of the past half-century.
Stearns had spent the past four decades running a photography studio in his native Annapolis.