Eddie Adams Day Photography Festival

Eddie Adams, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer and photojournalist, is being remembered earlier this week with the Eddie Adams Day Photography Festival. This is going to be its second year.

Born in New Kensington in 1933, Adams won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography for his famous capture on camera of the South Vietnamese police chief executing a Viet Cong prisoner on a Saigon street throughout the Vietnam War. He continued to mark his legacy with noteworthy portraits of celebrities and politicians with his fantastic coverage of 13 wars until his death in 2004.

Dan Henderson, president from the New Kensington Camera Club, that's sponsoring the Eddie Adams Day event, said he is looking forward to a substantial turnout.

Similar to a year ago, local photographers have entered portraits and human interest photos inspired by Adams to be displayed in the Allegheny-Kiski Valley Heritage Museum throughout June. Admission on the museum, at 224 E. Seventh Ave., Tarentum, is $5 and free to members.

Eddie Adams Day will probably be celebrated at the museum on Saturday starting at 10 a.m. The festival will feature guest speakers Alyssa Adams, Adams' widow and deputy photo editor at TV Guide, and Hal Buell, the Associated Press' Saigon bureau chief when Adams took his "Saigon Execution" photograph in 1968.

"An Unlikely Weapon," the 2009 documentary detailing Adams' life, is going to be screened at 1 p.m. on the museum.

Mr. Buell will speak in a dinner on the Clarion Hotel in New Kensington at 6 p.m. Saturday. Fee is $25 (tickets should be purchased in advance).

This year's event could have a few additions from this past year. There will be a clay bust at the museum inside the likeness of Eddie Adams that was carved and donated to the club by Pittsburgh-based sculptor Ben Jacobs. Also, limited-edition Eddie Adams Day commemorative coins produced by Mr. Henderson will be available for purchase for $10 each during show hours.

Mr. Henderson said the New Kensington Camera Club uses the event's proceeds to buy a Pennsylvania Historical Marker in 2014 for Adams.

"This is all about a man with the people, a U.S. Marine, a Korean War veteran, a photographer who while using snap of a camera shutter changed the entire world, an unlikely weapon indeed," he was quoted saying.