David Hume Kennerly doesn’t mind speaking in the past tense about his life in photographs, even while his cameras keep clicking.

“One of the reasons I take pictures is to share them with other people,” said Kennerly, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer who captured the Gerald Ford White House and the Vietnam War.

Kennerly won his Pulitzer more than 30 years ago, but his work hasn’t slowed – and his love for the medium hasn’t faltered – during the decades since his tours through the jungles of Vietnam.

So when he speaks tonight at the Lawrence Arts Center, followed with a presentation Thursday by longtime National Geographic photographer Bruce Dale, he’ll have an eye toward the future as well as his photographic past.

The speaking appearances are sponsored by the Lawrence Journal-World.

‘Like Forrest Gump’

Kennerly, who published his first photograph at age 15 in his high school newspaper in Roseburg, Ore., is a contributing editor for Newsweek magazine and NBC news. His first official photography jobs – as staff photographer for the Oregon Journal and then the Portland Oregonian – led him to a position with United Press International.

That gig landed Kennerly in Vietnam, where he snapped some of the most indelible images of the war to appear in U.S. media. The Pulitzer came in 1972.

Since then, he’s worked for LIFE and Time magazines, mainly snapping photos of presidents – both Richard Nixon and Ford – and leaders of countries spanning the globe.

He went on to major projects for Newsweek, LIFE, ABC’s “Good Morning America Sunday” and George magazine.

Luciano Pavarotti in 1994, photographed by David Hume Kennerly in Los Angeles. Kennerly will speak at 5:30 p.m. today at the Lawrence Arts Center, 940 N.H.

Kennerly has photographed more than 35 covers for Time and Newsweek, covered assignments in more than 130 countries and counts more than 1 million images in his photographic archive.

But now, Kennerly says he plans to add to his collection.

He’s in the process of working out a deal with the University Press of Kansas, publishing a book of photos, interviews and writings about the Ford White House tentatively titled “Extraordinary Circumstances.” Journalist Tom Brokaw and author Richard Norton Smith are slated to contribute.

Plus, Kennerly plans to shoot for a book based on data from the online auction site eBay, chronicling snapshots of Americana based on what people buy.

As for his storied history snapping shots of events that changed the country – Vietnam, Nixon waving goodbye after resigning and so on – Kennerly said it still strikes him as amazing that he got to be there, to capture so much.

“They said I was like Forrest Gump, except I was really there,” he said. “To me, I never get over that.”

Photographic voyager

Dale had more than 2,000 pictures published in National Geographic magazine during a career that sent him to 75-plus countries, shooting high in the sky, under the water and spots in between.

In 1989, he was named White House Photographer of the Year.

But he really specialized in everything else.

His work with National Geographic spanned the most complex of scientific, technological and anthropological subjects. One of his more memorable photos involved mounting two cameras on the tail of a Lockheed TriStar jumbo jet to make spectacular views of the big jet in flight. One, a 23-second time exposure, led to a three-page gatefold in Geographic; another, a cover on the magazine.

Dale’s photos range from sensitive people studies, such as his books on Gypsies and American Mountain People, to highly technical work, such as working with pulsed laser photography to help produce a hologram of an exploding crystal ball for the Geographic’s 100th Anniversary cover.

His vision and creativity twice earned him the title Magazine Photographer of the Year, and his innovative work with digital imaging brought him honors from the Smithsonian Institution. In addition to many other awards, one of his photographs now journeys beyond the solar system on board NASA’s Voyager Spacecraft, as testimony about planet Earth.

Dale left National Geographic to pursue a blend of editorial and corporate and advertising photography. His book, “The American Southwest,” was published in 1999 by National Geographic.