Before showing his first photograph, Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist John H. White stopped in front of each section of the McCormick Foundation Center’s main auditorium, making eye contact with each seated cherub and asking how they were doing.
For Jane Kim of Pasadena, California, the simple gesture meant far more. She said White reminded her of her grandfather, who died last March.
“We had a bit of a language barrier, but we went on walks together, and my grandfather would make eye contact and say hello to everyone he saw,” Kim said. “Once (White) got to me, he hadn’t even said hi yet. We literally just made eye contact, and then I started crying.”
Throughout the lecture, White captivated cherubs by pairing his photographs with personal reflections on life. Drawing from his decades of experience behind the camera, White encouraged students to “keep in flight” and pursue their dreams. He also reminded them of the responsibility of photojournalists as the eyes of humanity and future generations.
“What you do is beyond your lifetime,” he said. “If you don’t tell the story, who’s going to?”
White’s message resonated with Ignas Petrus of Chicago, who applied it to his own aspirations in journalism.
“Journalism is an ever-changing profession,” Petrus said. “At the end of the day, if you choose this road, you have to have a lot of faith in what you do and the validity of your work. ‘Keeping in flight’ is not just trusting the process, but trusting the values that you hold and the dreams that you have to accomplish whatever your heart desires.”
Celine Zhang of Cupertino, California, was one of the two cherubs who brought a camera to photograph White. He invited them onstage for a demonstration, challenging them to be the first to press the shutter.
“This was probably one of my favorite lectures of the program, and getting to be immersed in it was really rewarding,” Zhang said. “He solidified my interest in photography by showing how powerful it is as a medium of storytelling and how much meaning it can convey.”
Community and academic associate Liam Barrett first heard White speak as a cherub in 2024, when Barrett said he was “no great shakes at photography.” Hearing the lecture again this summer bolstered his appreciation for both White’s photography and the stories behind it.
“Photography is a much bigger part of my life now, so seeing him again was a very full-circle moment,” Barrett said. “He is still taking photos left and right and finding a huge amount of joy in it, so I continue to be inspired by him and his work.”
