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A Photographic Walk through History with Fred Watkins

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By Chéye Roberson
Sentinel Correspondent

Greenwich-born photographer Fred Watkins once stood with President Clinton and South African President Nelson Mandela in the cellblock where Mandela spent 27 years for opposing apartheid. As he captured Mandela gazing out of his former cellblock window on Robben Island in Table Bay, Watkins felt so moved that he couldn’t help but cry.

This was but one of many inspiring encounters Watkins experienced during his career. Over the course of 28 years, Watkins has traveled with five presidents on Air Force One, from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama—a great psychic distance from his boyhood in Armstrong Court, where he began taking pictures with his dad’s camera. His father, who was a preacher at Bethel AME church, shared his love of photography with his son.

“My father led me to the water and I pursued it. I went after it,” said Watkins.

Watkins became serious about photography while attending Western Middle School (then called Western Junior High School). He joined the photography club. Later he went to Greenwich High School, where he worked on photos for the school yearbook. At Western Connecticut University, Watkins was the photo editor of the college newspaper; he graduated in 1972.

Watkins credits his eighth and ninth grade art teacher from Western Middle School, Barbara Gotch, who retired two years ago after 50 years of teaching, with being another encouraging figure in his life.

“It was always my goal to give them opportunities to find what was going on outside of their environments,” said Gotch. “For him in particular, I saw a spark somewhere, or some opening, and I encouraged him then to go further.”

Gotch said that many of the other teachers at the middle school were also encouraging toward their students, and the great thing about teaching art compared to subjects like Spanish or English is that “you only fail if you don’t try.”

Gotch remembers Watkins always having a sense of humor and being a neighborhood kid who “had a sense of the way things operated,” which is why she felt he would benefit from developing his skills in photography.

“Junior high is very hard,” said Gotch. “It’s all me, me, me. Photography allows another way of looking at life around you, what you see and how you’re going to record it. It helps open their eyes to what’s around them.”

“I struggled in school. This was something that kept me going,” added Watkins.

After college, Watkins worked for Action Arts in Old Greenwich as a photography assistant. He photographed weddings and other special events around town. Later he started working at Time Inc. in New York City. He would wash and dry the prints for magazines such as Time, People, Life, Money Magazine, and Sports Illustrated.

“The articles came out on a conveyer belt and I used to line them up and place pics that would go to publication,” said Watkins.

The job paid the bills for Watkins while he went out at night as a paparazzo. He would check the A.P. Press report day schedule for what was happening in town and head out to an event to snap a photo of a celebrity in the hope of getting it published, but he kept getting turned down. The magazine would already have photographs from another photographer who was assigned to the event.

A friend of Watkins’ who also worked at Time-Life, Gordon Parks, the eminent photographer and director of “Shaft,” gave him some memorable advice.

“’Don’t put all your eggs in one basket,” he said, and so I started working for the Post and other people. They eventually called me and asked, “Did you cover this event, because someone didn’t make it,” said Watkins.

He eventually built up enough of a reputation for Life magazine to ask him to do a photo-story on Nation of Islam Minister Louis Farrakhan in 1984. Watkins traveled with Farrakhan for three weeks. In 1983, he met his wife, Cynthia, who lived in Greenwich. One of her friends suggested Watkins as a photographer for an ad campaign involving the logo for the 1984 Summer Olympics mascot, Sam the Eagle. Cynthia Watkins’ father was a lawyer who owned the rights to the mascot.

In 1987 Watkins began working for Ebony and Jet magazines, covering Washington, D.C., news from New York City. He would take the shuttle to Washington to cover special events at the White House. Watkins was asked to transfer to D.C. after one of the magazine’s older photographers got sick.

Robin Roberts and George Stephanopoulos on ABC's Good Morning America
Robin Roberts and George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s Good Morning America. photo by Fred Watkins.

Watkins continued working with Gordon Parks on his film projects as a set photographer. This led to his becoming a set photographer for ABC network shows such as Wife Swap, Celebrity Wife Swap, Extreme Home Makeover, and This Week with George Stephanopoulos—all while covering Washington-related news events for Ebony and Jet.

Watkins has also done set work for Good Morning America since the days when Greenwich resident Joan Lunden was hosting. Watkins was able to photograph celebrities like Tom Cruise, Elizabeth Taylor, Michael Jackson, and every major celebrity who came out with a movie or wrote a book that came on Good Morning America. When World News Tonight included segments in Washington, D.C., Watkins snapped shots of all the political and celebrity guests that made appearances.

Gotch visited Watkins for lunch a few years back, when she took her eighth and ninth graders on a field trip to Washington.

“He said, ‘Who would have expected someone like me to get where I am?’” Gotch recalled. “And I said, ‘Why Not?’”

While covering George H. W. Bush for Jet magazine, the President, who also grew up in Greenwich, called Watkins over to his desk. He opened his drawer and handed Watkins a pair of Presidential cuff links. He said, “Here, for an old town boy.”

Watkins cherishes those cuff links to this day, and said that one of the things he always liked about both President Bushes—father and son—was the fact that they were punctual.

“If they said a press conference would start at 3, it started at 3,” said Watkins.

Watkins recalls President George W. Bush looking over sympathetically at Watkins and the other photographers after they landed in Africa together. “He said, ‘Jesus, it’s too hot—you guys carrying all that equipment,’” said Watkins.

When President Obama was still a senator based in Chicago, he approached Watkins in front of the elevators in the Hart Senate Office Building in D.C. to thank him for a photograph he took of him that had appeared in Ebony magazine. Watkins had covered Obama’s first day as a senator during a private party that was thrown for him after he was sworn into office. Watkins said Obama’s daughters were knee-high at the time.

Watkins has a several standout moments from spending time with the Presidents. He fondly remembers the moment when President Obama gave Bob Dylan, another one of his idols, the Presidential Medal of Freedom award at the White House in 2012.

Photo by Fred Watkins
Photo by Fred Watkins

Another moment Watkins will never forget is when he covered a jazz party that was held for President Bill Clinton at the White House. Musician Lionel Hampton was playing a set when he stopped to make an announcement.

“’He said, ‘Excuse me, we also have a saxophone player in the audience.’ We all knew who he was talking about,” said Watkins.

Hampton invited Clinton on stage to play the saxophone and as he started to hand him a clean reed for the saxophone’s mouthpiece, Clinton “just took the sax and started playing. It was a really special night,” Watkins said.

During his career, Watkins became close friends with boxing legend Muhammad Ali. After Ali’s Parkinson’s disease sowed him down, Watkins would sometimes help escort him around Washington.

Watkins plans to do lecture tours around the state to share his some of his experiences and what he has learned from them. The first lecture, called a Photographic Walk through History, will take place at the Greenwich Library on Nov. 14.

“Fred has captured history through pictures,” Gotch said. “They are examples of what you have done. I believe that what we create is what man knows about himself.”

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Photo by Fred Watkins
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