WASHINGTON Photographer's daily shots capture an entire year

The images vary from moments of the tumultuous 2000 presidential vote to a detailing shop in Georgia.
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
WASHINGTON -- Each clear black-and-white image captures a moment -- a rare emotion stolen from a politician, the innocence of children on a beach or the silliness of two smiling potatoes on the back of a pickup truck.
David Hume Kennerly steps back from news-making photographs in a Smithsonian exhibit sponsored by the University of Texas Center for American History. The Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer took a photo every day in 2000, on display for visitors to Washington in "Photo du Jour: A Picture-A-Day Journey through the First Year of the New Millennium."
"I often think about the pictures I didn't take as much as about the ones I did," Kennerly writes to viewers at the start of the exhibit, proving his careful selection of each subject, using only one camera and one lens.
Published works
Currently a contributing editor for Newsweek, Kennerly has captured images of events and leaders around the world for Time and Life magazines, receiving the Pulitzer Prize for his Vietnam photographs. He covered eight presidential campaigns and worked as personal photographer for former President Ford. But "Photo du Jour" refocuses the lens that previously saw only the story of the moment.
"This time, I wouldn't speed across that covered bridge to get to the big event on the other side," Kennerly writes. "Instead, I'd slow down a bit and maybe even pause to take a picture of the span."
Kennerly's political experience takes center stage in glimpses of the 2000 presidential campaign. One photo documents the tension of Nov. 8 in Austin, when the famous election results were "too close to call." Then-presidential candidate George W. Bush and his wife, Laura, are glued to the television. Standing behind them are vice presidential candidate Dick Cheney, campaign chairman Don Evans and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, his mouth twisted in disbelief.
New angles
Each of the 150 pictures in "Photo du Jour" presents a fresh angle on everyday life. An outboard motor cuts a wake through a calm lake, with the mountains of the Grand Teton National Park as a backdrop. A closer look reveals the photo's subject: a fire in the mountains, with smoke blending into the clouds.
An aerial photo of Los Angeles called "Gandhi goes downtown" shows a building-sized Apple advertisement featuring Mahatma Gandhi, who looks as if he's walking among the rest of the buildings.
Kennerly's photographs span 38 states and seven countries, finding new angles on famous landmarks such as "the U.S. Capitol behind bars," forebodingly seen through a steel fence before Sept. 11.
At the end of the year, a Dec. 19 photo shows President-elect Bush at his first Oval Office appearance, looking uncomfortable next to a relaxed Bill Clinton. The next day, a goofy Mad Hatter waves to the camera at Disneyland.
Photographic archive
A sponsor of the exhibit, the University of Texas Center for American History in Austin, already holds an archive of more than 1 million of Kennerly's photographs. The center also is home to the research archives of The New York Times, the New York Herald Tribune and Newsweek, as well as the papers of news professionals including Walter Cronkite and Robert Trout. The exhibit will travel throughout the United States in 2003 with the schedule to be announced. The exhibit will stop in Texas and will ultimately reside at the center.
"Photo du Jour" complements a 240-page book of the same title featuring 515 images from 2000 published by University of Texas Press.
XThe exhibit runs through Dec. 29 at the Smithsonian's Arts and Industries Building on the National Mall in Washington. It's open from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and admission is free. For more information, call (202) 357-2700 or visit www.si.edu on the Web.