My Lens on Lincolnia

Over 40 years visually documenting America for our esteemed national library, I’ve photographed some sweeping panoramas. But one of my most treasured moments involved a single item no bigger than a harmonica.  It was a derringer – the very gun with which John Wilkes Booth mortally wounded Abraham Lincoln.  At Ford’s Theatre, one of many stops on my personal pursuit of Lincoln’s remarkable markers from Washington, D.C., to Illinois, the National Park Service gingerly brought out the pistol for me to capture.  Here it is, featured on the cover the Audiobook version of Gore Vidal’s fictional Lincoln chronicle.