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Shearer reacts to news he'll receive Parks Choice of Weapons award
John Shearer will receive an award this fall named after his longtime friend, mentor and inspiration -- the late Fort Scott native Gordon Parks.
Shearer, an award-winning photographer, author and creative director, will receive the Gordon Parks Choice of Weapons Award during the eighth annual Gordon Parks Celebration of Culture and Diversity Oct. 7-8 in Fort Scott.
"Gordon was my mentor ... and he was like a father to me," Shearer said. "To get an award in his name is rewarding. I'm very excited."
Shearer said he first met Parks as a young boy, "around age 10 or 11," and the two men would eventually become lifelong friends and even colleagues at Life magazine. Shearer had just started taking photos at that age, and, spurred by Parks, developed a love of photography and writing.
"He inspired me to work harder at it," Shearer said. "He was one of the major inspirations in my life, no question about it."
Shearer said he visited Parks, who died in 2006 at the age of 93, once a month toward the end of his life.
At the age of 17, Shearer was one of the youngest staff photographers ever hired by a major publication when Look magazine took him on. On staff with the magazine from 1966-'69, he covered the race riots and civil rights movement of the 1960s.
He was hired by Life magazine in 1968, where he worked as a staff photographer until the magazine ceased regular weekly publications in 1972.
Shearer's office was located next to Parks' office while working at Life magazine.
"It was very helpful to me for Gordon to be there all the time," he said.
Shearer said his job at the magazine allowed him to travel to other parts of the United States to experience other lifestyles and cultures.
"Before, I had never gone anywhere but New York, where I grew up," he said. "It was an amazing experience for me visiting the South."
One of his most famous photographs was taken on Monday, Nov. 25, 1963, the day of John F. Kennedy's funeral. Shearer caught the moment when Jackie Kennedy leaned over to young John Kennedy Jr., and whispered something in his ear. The young boy looked at his father's coffin and made a crisp salute as the coffin departed.
"There were a lot of people taking pictures at that event," he said. "I found a place right in front about a half hour or so before. I snuck into a crowd of folks. I was working with a new piece of equipment that day. It was a new 200-millimeter lens, a manual lens not an automatic lens that they have today. I was having difficulty focusing."
Despite his troubles, a young Shearer snapped an historic photo that was not among the first wave of photos from the event to run but became one of the most widely used.
"It was overexposed but the overexposure showed all the details," he said. "You talk about a happy accident, that was a happy accident."
Shearer is a true renaissance man, fashioned in the mold of Parks, a news release said.
Like Parks, Shearer has been a photographer, writer, director, lecturer and professor. Parks was the first African-American staff photographer at Life magazine and Shearer, the second.
Shearer covered several landmark events throughout his career as a photographer, including the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr., and the Attica Prison riots. In 1970, he worked on a story on a street gang in the South Bronx which Shearer called "a good picture story."
While working at Life, Shearer covered the first Muhammad Ali vs. Joe Frazier bout, billed as the "Fight of the Century." He was the only photographer allowed inside Attica Prison during the assault by New York law enforcement authorities in 1972 and watched events unfold.
Shearer said he was never nervous or scared covering potentially dangerous stories.
"It was always about getting the story," he said. "I cared most about coming back with pictures ... I was not thinking about personal safety. I was concerned with telling a good story and an accurate story."
Shearer has won 175 national photography awards and more than 150 national magazine design awards.
His work has been exhibited at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, and the Whitney Museum. He has been founder and president of Image Partners, a custom publishing company, since 1996.
The Gordon Parks Celebration, a component of the Gordon Parks Museum and Center, was created in 2004 by Fort Scott Community College to honor Parks, the noted photographer, writer, musician and filmmaker.
At the culmination of the first year's events, the Choice of Weapons Award was established in Parks' honor to be given annually at the celebration. Named after his autobiography, the award honors a recipient who has excelled in the areas that Parks did and who exemplifies Parks' spirit and strength of character.
Shearer will be honored at a tribute dinner on Saturday, Oct. 8.