After 5 years, we catch up with our past Photography Person of the Year award-winner, David Hume Kennerly, to see how his career has progressed.
Best known for his work as an official White House photographer, David Hume Kennerly is a directing graduate of the American Film Institute's Center for Advanced Film and Television Studies. He was nominated for a Primetime Emmy as executive producer of NBC's "The Taking of Flight 847," and was writer and executive producer of a two-hour NBC pilot, "Shooter," starring Helen Hunt, based on his Vietnam experiences. He is also executive producer of the documentary, "Portraits of a Lady," about former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, that made the short list of films eligible for the 2008 Academy Award nominations.
Kennerly, based in Santa Monica, Calif., recently photographed the Girl Scouts cookie box art that will appear next year on millions of packages. He also shot Bank of America's "Neighborhood Excellence Initiative," which involved traveling to 13 cities around the country to photograph local heroes, student leaders, and local nonprofits that have contributed to their communities.
Still involved in the political arena, Kennerly is currently producing a four-hour documentary about White House chiefs of staff for PBS; he and his team have interviewed 16 chiefs so far for the film. In 2010 he was a featured speaker at the Entertainment Gathering in Monterey, Calif., and he also appeared at the 2010 Aspen Ideas Festival in Aspen, Colo., where he gave a presentation on "Presidential Photography from Lincoln to Obama."
Kennerly recently appeared in a "CBS Sunday Morning" piece on White House photographers in conjunction with a National Geographic documentary that ran on PBS.
Learn more: kennerly.com