Two Photographers and the Basement Shutter Speeds in Dallas
At 11:21 a.m. on November 24, 1963, Dallas Morning News photographer Jack Beers stood atop a basement railing at Dallas police headquarters and tripped his Mamiyaflex twin-lens reflex shutter just as Jack Ruby stepped toward Lee Harvey Oswald. Six-tenths of a second later, Bob Jackson of the Dallas Times Herald released the shutter on his Nikon S3 from the floor level below, capturing the exact moment the bullet struck. Fstoppers reported that neither man used a motorized drive, leaving each photographer with a single exposure during a chaotic encounter lit by television lights and heavy strobes that required up to five seconds to recycle.
Positions and Vantage Points Across the Basement Floor
Beers arrived at city hall shortly before 9 a.m. after a midnight phone call, securing a high vantage point on the east side of the basement driveway next to live television cameras. According to his April 1964 deposition to the Warren Commission, he spent two hours sitting on the railing before standing up as the transfer began. Jackson chose the opposite approach, standing at floor level near the incline by the jail office door where Oswald had to pass. Jackson prefocused his Nikon S3 with a 35mm lens and a strobe, ignoring a last-minute desk order to cover a press conference for Nellie Connally at Parkland Hospital so he could maintain his position.
📨 AMERICANS SENT JACK RUBY CONGRATULATORY TELEGRAMS AFTER HE KILLED LEE HARVEY OSWALD IN 1963On November 24, 1963, nightclub owner Jack Ruby shot and killed JFK’s accused assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, on live television.But here’s something I never knew.People actually sent… pic.twitter.com/03RKfcgO5V
Frame Timings and Reactions Recorded on Film
Frame-by-frame analysis of the basement footage by Gary Mack, former curator of The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza, established the exact sequence of the camera flashes. Beers stated in a 1967 letter to Ruby’s attorney that he saw sudden movement out of the corner of his eye and made his frame before hearing an unnatural curse and the gunshot. Jackson recounted in 2002 that he remained focused on Oswald’s face and reacted only to human movement rather than Beers’ flash, allowing him to capture the impact while Beers recorded the initial disruption.
Pulitzer Recognition and Diverging Career Paths
The single frames produced starkly different outcomes for both photographers. Chief photographer Tom Dillard told Beers he had won the paper a Pulitzer when viewing the wet negative, and the Dallas Morning News ran Beers’ picture prominently on its front page. However, Darlene Beers Williams stated years later that her father lived with untreated depression and the enduring belief that he missed the definitive shot, leading to a heart attack that killed him at age 51 in Dallas on February 17, 1975. Meanwhile, sports editor Blackie Sherrod ordered Jackson’s frame to run across all eight columns of the November 25 front page of the Dallas Times Herald. Jackson earned the 1964 Pulitzer Prize for Photography, the Texas Headliners Club award, and Sigma Delta Chi’s news picture award, later working for The Denver Post and The Gazette in Colorado Springs until his 1999 retirement.
Archival Legacy at Dealey Plaza
Both historical negatives and equipment reside at The Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. Negatives exposed by Beers are preserved in the museum’s Dallas Morning News holdings under the collection named for Dillard. Jackson’s Nikon S3 camera entered the museum on long-term loan before being formalized as a gift in 2024, where it remains on display alongside a large reproduction of the prize-winning frame. The museum further expanded its collection in August 2025 by acquiring Jackson’s complete archive of more than 15,000 images spanning from 1960 to 1978.