The 2024 Recipients – William Alberter & David Burnett
William Alberter
We had two daily newspapers in Pittsburgh, but my family only took the afternoon edition. That left me seeking out the early morning paper to see if I had missed anything. Fortunately, my high school library received a copy of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. I was happy to get to school early to read as much as I could before classes started.
Those papers and broadcasts painted a picture of a world outside of my suburban neighborhood bubble. Amazing writers and photographers brought that world to me through their work, inspiring this young person to want to be like them.
I took lots of still pictures with the family camera and moving pictures with an 8mm film camera. Not until I walked into our high school TV studio and started creating video projects did I realize this was going to be my life’s calling. Two incredible role models, Mr. Richey and Mrs. Madden, stoked the curiosity and passion that I had for telling stories and encouraged me to dream big and be creative.
At Clarion University of Pennsylvania I worked with a whole host of very talented teachers and students, but the man who really helped me the most was Dr. Henry Fueg. If you believed you could do it, he was going to give you every tool and opportunity that he could to make your dream come true. From my freshman year until graduation, I worked hard and spent more time in the TV studios and control rooms than I did in the classroom.
My first television news job was as a photographer/editor at WTOV in Steubenville, Ohio, learning about real deadlines and how to tell a story in two minutes or less. The news director, Bob Palmer, paid me $4.50 an hour, but I would have worked for free if I didn’t have bills to pay. I just wanted the experience.
After a year or so at WTOV I found an opportunity in Fairfax County, Virginia, working for the local cable news company (it eventually became Newschannel 8) covering the Washington, D.C., area. I met so many talented people working in a large TV market who were breaking news and covering some of the most important stories.
That was also when I joined the White House News Photographers Association, in the fall of 1992. The photo contest initially drew me in, but the camaraderie among the talented men and women I met through the WHNPA kept growing and has lasted a lifetime.
My biggest opportunity came in the winter of 1998 working freelance on the weekends for CNN as they covered the Clinton/Lewinsky story in D.C. I pretty much worked every weekend for seven months straight trying to show them I was worthy of a staff position. Shortly after that I was made an offer, and I’ve been living my dream every day since.
I’ve traveled the 50 states and 37 countries covering stories and bringing them to life with my pictures and sound. There have been so many amazing days. I sometimes have to stop and look around and take a minute and acknowledge how fortunate I am to be doing what I do for a living.
Some days can be tough and the subject matter of a story hard to understand, but those stories need to be told as well. So many events – hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, wildfires – contain some kind of danger and despair. Seeing people at the worst possible time in their lives yet treading lightly around their tragedy while telling their stories is something I’ve had to perfect.
I’ve also seen and covered the amazing work carried out by our men and women of the armed services. They put their lives on the line every day to keep us safe, and they are the heroes of this world.
Traveling the world covering the president of the United States and flying on Air Force One has been a privilege and honor. Seeing history being made in real time has been among of the most rewarding experiences in my life.
With all the success and wonderful experiences I’ve had, being a father to my incredible children, Katie and Andrew, makes me most proud.
I have been blessed, and am thankful for all that God has given me. I only hope that I have given folks who have seen my work a better look at the world – and maybe inspired others to find some way to do things that they will find fulfilling.
David Burnett
Like so many of my contemporaries, I jumped into photography working on the high school yearbook. On the photo staff at Salt Lake City’s Olympus High School, I learned basic darkroom techniques, as well as the trick of sliding the film under – not over – the roller when loading a Rolleiflex.
I combined a love of racing with that newly honed joy of photographing by shooting pictures at the Bonneville (Salt Lake) Drag strip on a Saturday, printing them in the furnace room during the week, and selling them for $2 to the drivers the next week. I was soon selling Friday night high school basketball pictures to the Salt Lake Tribune for a credit line, five bucks, and a fresh roll of replacement film. Life was never better!
The summer before senior year led to overnight trips sleeping in our old Plymouth at the abandoned Wendover Air Force Base to photograph the likes of Craig Breedlove breaking the world land speed record at the Bonneville Salt Flats. While attending Colorado College I shot pictures for the yearbook and the weekly paper. A mumbling calculus professor thwarted my career as a rocket scientist, and I graduated in 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in political science – but not before a summer internship with Time magazine in New York and Washington, D.C.
Working three days a week for $85, I met many of the established pros, among them Wally Bennett, Wally McNamee, Fred Ward, Dennis Brack and Don Carl Steffen. All were very welcoming to a kid from the sticks and full of tips. My age was the only downside – at 20 years old I was too young for martini lunches and stories at Duke Zeibert’s restaurant, near the White House.
After graduation I began freelancing, mainly for Time. In 1970, I headed to Saigon as a freelancer, then spent two years working for both Time and Life magazine. I returned to New York at a contract photographer for Life, which shut down just as I was getting ready to head out on my first cover story (Don Shula and the unbeaten Miami Dolphins). Amid all the “photojournalism is dead” discussions that followed, I joined the French photo agency Gamma. The advantages of combining your own stories with assignments, working on spec, were becoming apparent.
For a time I was the personal photographer to Valery Giscard d’Estaing, who was running for, and became, president of France. My exclusive pictures of Giscard in his historic office at the Elysee, surrounded by his dogs, were a scoop for Paris Match.
Two years with Gamma led to co-founding Contact Press Images in New York in 1975, and I continued to work for newsmagazines in Europe and the U.S., shooting politics, sports, and portraiture as well as news. For a Time project on a “new” musical style called reggae, I spent time in Jamaica with musicians that included Bob Marley. A year later I travelled with Marley and the Wailers in Europe, riding the bus on the Exodus Tour, for a Rolling Stone assignment. In 1979, at the height of the Iranian Revolution, I arrived in Tehran just days before the departure of the Shah and the return of Ayatollah Khomeini.
I semi-officially became a sports photographer at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. My picture of a fallen Mary Decker during the finals of the women’s 3000m captured what turned out to be the biggest moment of the Summer Games. I’ve covered all the Summer Games since, as well as three Winter Games.
My sports, portraiture and political work with what’s been called “the Burnett Combo” – a WWII-era fast, sharp, Kodak Aero Ektar lens (built for recon cameras during the war) mounted on a Speed Graphic – reignited interest in gear that had mostly fallen into disuse. These days my camera bag is likely to contain the latest Sony digital cameras as well a Graflex 4×5 that is significantly older than its owner.
More than 50 years ago I joined Wally Bennett at the White House to cover President Lyndon Johnson’s welcoming ceremony for the King of Thailand. Today, entering the White House grounds through the Northwest Gate remains a sacred event for me. It’s a reminder of the importance of what we do as photographers.
I am currently working on a long-term project on senior athletes and I can say – these are my people!
About the Award
Sixty years after the WHNPA was formed in 1981, the executive board created a Lifetime Achievement recognition that would be presented each year at the annual ‘Eyes of History®’ awards gala. The award was created to honor the career and achievements of both still and video photographers. Andrew J. “Buck” May of Harris & Ewing received the first Lifetime Achievement Award. May was a founding member of the WHNPA and a four-time president of the association. He served on the inaugural and multiple exhibit committees.
Past Winners
The list of Lifetime Achievement Award recipients throughout the years reads like a who’s-who of visual journalists in Washington.
2024 – David Burnett
2023 – Diana Walker
2022 – Joni Mazer Field
2019 – Margaret Thomas
2016 – Rodney Batten
2013 – Ron Edmonds
2010 – Pege Gilgannon
2007 – Frank Johnston
2004 – Sheldon Fielman
2001 – Arnie Sachs
1998 – Robert Gilka
1995 – Joe Bailey
1992 – George Tames
1989 – Ken Blaylock
1986 – Arthur Lodovichetti
1983 – Byron Rollins
2018 – Charles MacDonald
2015 – Larry Downing
2012 – Ed Eaves
2009 – Bob Daugherty
2006 – Gordon Swenson
2003 – Dirck Halstead
2000 – Wally McNamee
1997 – James Atherton
1994 – Max Desfor
1991 – Bernie Boston
1988 – Maurice Johnson
1985 – Jack Fletcher
1982 – Frank Cancellare
2017 – J. Scott Applewhite
2014 – Doug Wilkes
2011 – Dennis Brack
2008 – Holly and Paul Fine
2005 – Chick Harrity
2002 – George Fridrich
1999 – Steve Affens
1996 – Charles Tasnadi
1993 – Henry Burroughs
1990 – Paul Lyons
1987 – Larry Krebs
1984 – Murray Alvey
1981 – Andrew “Buck” May