AP's Longtime White House Photographer Retiring

By: Daryl Lang Associated Press Senior White House Photographer Ron Edmonds ? who shot the definitive pictures of the 1981 assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan and the 1993 meeting of Bill Clinton, Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat, among other major presidential events ? is retiring after 28 years.

Edmonds announced his retirement in an e-mail to colleagues, which was posted Wednesday by Politico. He wrote:

"After twenty-eight years of covering the White House for the Associated Press, I have decided to retire and spend some time with my family. I know you usually hear this excuse from politicians who have just been caught with their hands in the cookie jar or with a high-priced companion; but, in this instance, spending time with my family is my true reason, ok maybe a little fishing as well."

Edmonds was one of the first news photographers to transmit a near-live electronic photograph, when he used an experimental camera to cover the swearing in of President George H. W. Bush in 1989. He won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for spot news photography for his coverage of the Reagan assassination attempt. More recently, last April, his name was in the news for finding and photographing a nest of robin's eggs outside the White House press briefing room.

-- Nielsen Business Media