Kennedy photog Davidoff dies at 78

Was speaking to a friend just now who lives in Florida and he told me

he saw the obituary this morning for photographer Bob Davidoff who

was the personal photographer for the Kennedys when they stayed in

Palm Beach, as well as having shot portraits of many celebreties as

they passed through Palm Beach for various reasons like charitable

events. All the shots of JFK and Jackie and the kids in Palm Beach

were the work of Mr. Davidoff. For the past several years he had

been the resident photog at Donald Trump's Mar-A-Lago club. What

accounted for his access to these people was that he refused to

publish any unflattering or embarrassing shots, and they had complete

trust in him. That might be a controversial stance in the minds of

some people, but without it there would not be the thousands of

photos of these people in private moments. I remember seeing him

once when I was a spectator at some kind of event in Palm Beach, he

was a diminuitive guy, I'm 5 foot 6 and he was a good head shorter.

I wondered how all his pictures didn't look like they were shot with

the camera tilted up. I don't recall what kind of camera he was

using but I _think_ it was a Nikon FM-something. But his style was

similar to Eisenstadt, David Kennerly et al, and so in the Leica

genre. Both his sons joined his photo business and there are

currently 3 books in preparation of Davidoff's work, one on the

Kennedy years, one on other celebs, and one on Trump. Seems like

there have been many--too many-passings of great photographers lately.