Did the photographer win any award for those photos? Could you win a Pulitzer Prize for photographs in 1957? I don't know the answer to those questions but the photographer should have won everything possible. Taking a great news photograph often means the photographer just happens to be in the right place at the right time. This guy was just lurking around, LBJ and Green didn't know he was there. Right? I mean look at their expressions, they're oblivious. Second, this wasn't one "lucky" shot, it is four separate shots, a sequence. Which means, finally, that the photographer knew well the context: Lyndon Johnson was at the apex of his power as Senate Majority Leader; he had acquired that power through the force of his Texas-sized personality-immensely powerful-, which he used to work his will: by reasoning, by bullying, by frightening and by charming, all four of which seem to be captured in these four photographs! It is brilliant work. The photographer captured not a moment, but an era, not one side of a man but the essence of the man. An amazing observer, amazing photographic history.
