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January 9, 2025
As former President Jimmy Carter is laid to rest today, I am sharing some photos that I made of him at his outdoor rally at 15th and Chestnut Streets in Philadelphia on October 29th, 1976.
There is a well-known quote from Jimmy Carter: “Wherever life takes us, there are always moments of wonder.” While he was not a photographer, I want to share this with the photographers who will read this post because it is an excellent reminder of what photographers need to hold onto and never let go of – that sense of wonder at everything we see and encounter through life.
The Rally at 15th and Chestnut Streets
These aren’t award-winning photos. They aren’t great photos. But they have an awesome backstory that I have held onto since the day that the 16-year-old Joe Edelman was able to photograph the future president.
I was on assignment to photograph Jimmy Carter. It was my first time on assignment with press credentials secured via the Secret Service.
The Backstory: President Ford’s Campaign Stop
This wouldn’t have happened had it not been for the events of October 27th, 1976, when President Gerald Ford made a campaign stop at the Plymouth Meeting Mall in Pennsylvania. I had gone to the mall right after school with a photographer friend, Randall Wolf (because he had a car ), hoping to get close enough to get photos of the president.
We secured spots right up front at the podium and close enough to touch David Hume Kennerly (Ford’s official white house photographer and an early idol of mine) when he walked by.
What we didn’t know was that the media were banned from the event, and the two of us had the only photos of Ford speaking that night. Fortunately, the next morning, I dropped my photos off at my local paper, the North Penn Reporter, and they ran four columns at the top the front page with my byline and then were transmitted to AP which became my first wire service byline.
After school, I stopped by the newspaper, and the City Editor, Mr. Dick Shearer, congratulated me for the photos, and I am pretty sure that’s where he expected the conversation to end.
I saw an opportunity and told him that I would love to photograph the upcoming Jimmy Carter rally in Philadelphia on assignment for the paper.
To his credit, he took a chance on the 16-year-old photographer and agreed to send me and get me credentials.
Capturing Carter’s Rally
I made it a point to arrive at the rally location several hours early to scope it out and tamp down some of the excited energy I was dealing with. When I got to the intersection, I saw the stage with the podium, the Jimmy Carter for President signs, and the real prize – the press platform across the intersection for all photographers and TV cameras.
I signed in to get my credentials and climbed on the platform to take my rightful spot among the national media. I was early enough to be the only photographer on the platform, and while I was excited to be there, I realized two things.
When the national media arrived, I would likely get pushed to the back row, meaning a wide-angle shot to show the crowd would be difficult to obtain.
– My photos would have the same perspective as the national media—photographers who were older and much more experienced than me.
– That second realization created a pit in my stomach, and as I looked down at the street and the crowd that was beginning to form, I decided to give up my credentials and go and wait in the crowd just in front of the stage. Just like my friend and I had done with President Ford.
The net result is that my photos were different. The newspaper printed two of them on the front page the next day.
Were they the best photos from the event? Definitely not. A photographer with the national media was on the stage, and he got some great shots of Carter with the crowd behind him.
I picked a spot that was a little too close to the stage, which made it challenging to get great shots at the podium because I didn’t realize that he wasn’t very tall, fortunately, though he was only behind the podium for part of the event.
Lessons Learned from the Experience
The story’s moral is to do different and be different, and your work won’t get lost in the crowd.
Also, seek out mentors. I had several great mentors in my life, but at the North Penn Reporter, two were highly impactful. Willard Krieble was the chief photographer and a guy I always admired because he could photograph a check presentation and make it look amazing. The other was Robert Martin, who was Krieble’s protege. Martin was young, competitive, and extremely talented. He was a guy who made you earn his respect, and I am glad he did.
Find peers with similar interests. The friend with the car, Randal Wolf, was a year older than me and went on to have a long career as a newspaper photographer. We were friends, but we were also competitive with each other. Plus, it helped that he had a car!
The Last Frame
And the last moral is that sentiment from Jimmy Carter himself, “Wherever life takes us, there are always moments of wonder.” I have been taking photographs for almost 53 years, so there is a lot of “been there and done that” between my ears. While it is more complicated now than when I was younger, maintaining a sense of wonder has helped me continue to see the world fresh.
For more stories from my career, click here.
