When Jacques Lowe arrived at the Kennedy family’s Hyannis Port compound in 1958 for his first photo shoot with John F. Kennedy, the young senator from Massachusetts “was furious,” Lowe later recalled. His father, Joseph Kennedy Sr., who had orchestrated the shoot, hadn’t consulted him. “I was convinced it was a failure,” said Lowe, who, by the end of the day, had snapped JFK and his wife, Jackie, holding their baby daughter Caroline, who was chewing on her mother’s pearls. “It started off so bad,” said Lowe, “and the result was so good.”
Lowe went on to become JFK’s personal campaign photographer and was given unprecedented access for the next four years before returning to his commercial work in New York. Now a new documentary, Capturing Kennedy, streaming Dec. 2 on Amazon Prime and Apple TV, tells the story of how Lowe, who spent two years hiding from the Nazis, emigrated from Germany to the U.S. in 1949 with little more than his camera—and ended up taking photos that would help shape the myth of Camelot.
Lowe died at 71 in May 2001, four months before Sept. 11, when 40,000 of his negatives, nearly his entire archive, kept in a Chase Manhattan Bank safety deposit box at the World Trade Center, were destroyed. Luckily in the mid-’90s he’d befriended Kennedy memorabilia collector Frank Harvey, who purchased more than 400 of his prints—some never published—and interviewed him on video about his White House years.
That footage became the basis of the new film. Asked how he got such intimate images of JFK and his family, Lowe said, “I was always kind of like a fly on the wall, and I never asked him to do anything.”
The Candidate & His Cameraman
The Estate of Jacques Lowe/Getty
Jacques Lowe with JFK in West Virginia in 1960.
Candid Camera
The Estate of Jacques Lowe/Getty
“He was very relaxed,” said Lowe of the future President (with Jackie in Hyannis Port in August 1960).
A Quieter Time
The Estate of Jacques Lowe/Getty
When Lowe took this 1959 shot at an Oregon diner in the campaign’s early days, “they were unrecognized,” he recalled.
Tender Touch
The Estate of Jacques Lowe/Getty
Jackie (with Caroline in 1959) was protective of her children, but “she understood photography,” said Lowe.
Profile in Courage
The Estate of Jacques Lowe/Getty
“This photo [from 1960] was used for a campaign poster and the memorial card after his death,” says Steele Burrow.
Up Close
The Estate of Jacques Lowe/Getty
“Lowe would say JFK [with Jackie and Caroline, ca. 1960] rarely stood still for more than a minute,” says documentary director Steele Burrow.
Hidden Moments
The Estate of Jacques Lowe/Getty
JFK (with Caroline in Hyannis Port, ca. 1960) “never paid any attention to the camera,” Lowe said.
