Michael Arthur Worden Evans
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Michael Arthur Worden "Mike" Evans (21 June 1944, St. Louis, Missouri — December 1, 2005, Atlanta, Georgia) was a noted newspaper, magazine, and presidential photographer. He was President Ronald Reagan's personal photographer during his first term as president from 1981 through 1985. Evans is best remembered for his 1976 iconic photo of Ronald Reagan wearing a cowboy hat taken while working for Equus Magazine, that made the covers of many magazines in the week after the Reagans's death in 2004. He was nominated for Pulitzer Prize while shooting for The New York Times.
Born in St. Louis, Evans was the son of a Canadian diplomat and a registered nurse. Evans lived in Havana and Cape Town, South Africa in his youth. His first job at the age of 15 was at the Port Hope Evening Guide in Ontario, Canada; then he worked as a photographer for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland, Ohio, The New York Times and Time magazine.
He began shooting Reagan as a photographer for Time magazine, when Reagan first ran for the Republican nomination for President. Seeing a future for Reagan, Evans continued to document his political career, moving to Washington in 1980 as the White House Photographer for four years.
Evans made a series of portraits of Washington personalities that became a book and exhibit, "People and Power: Portraits From the Federal Village," a collection of 595 subjects ranging from the chief justice, members of Congress, and journalists to a secretary and a Capital janitor that was eventually displayed at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington in 1985 and were published in book form, later that year.
After he left his job at the White House, Evans returned to Time as a contract photographer for several years. Evans later became the photographer editor for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and rode the digital photography wave, creating computer software for digital cataloguing systems.
Evans was a lifetime National Press Photographers Association Member and worked as the chief technical officer for ZUMA Press. Some of his most memorable pictures include Nancy Reagan peering around the press room door with a birthday cake as a surprise for her husband
=and the day John Hinckley shot Reagan and others outside the Washington Hilton (a bullet which barely missed hitting Evans).
Evans would say, "There's no better time than right now." Michael Evans, 61, died of cancer in his Atlanta home on December 1, 2005.
Some information taken from Donald Winslow, News Photographer Magazine.
