Award-Winning "Time Magazine" Photographer Diana Hardin Walker ’59 Shares Her Experiences with Foxcroft Community

Sitting in front of a rotating slideshow of her photos, Walker ’59, the 59th Fellow and speaker in this endowed series, answered questions posed by Head of School Dr. Lisa Kaenzig, beginning with how she came to be a student at Foxcroft. 

“Charlotte Noland [Foxcroft's founder] was a very, very close friend of my godparents,” shared Walker ’59, “and ever since I was a little girl, at weddings and family meetings, Miss Charlotte used to put me on her knee and say, ‘you're coming to my school.’ I came down here to see the school, and they took me to the Schoolhouse. I opened the door right near the biology lab, and there was a dark room. [I] took one look at that and thought, I want to go here. I'm so glad I chose it, and I really did choose it because of Miss Charlotte and the darkroom."

From there, the conversation moved into her career, as Walker ’59 shared some of the challenges she encountered as a female photojournalist in the 1970s and 1980s.  

"You've all heard about the Women's Movement?” she queried. “I was starting out right in the middle of it. There were a lot of female photographers. There have always been, in the history of photography. But in the hard scrabble, little bit tough news business ... I had to sort of push away my good Foxcroft manners. It wasn't easy, except they could see the following Monday in Time Magazine whether I was able to make a good picture or not."  

Over 20 years and four presidencies, she would, as she joked with the audience, perfect her “creeping around” skills. “[Time] said, see how many opportunities you can get behind the scenes and show us the President when he's not in public, when he's not working. Show us the President when he's playing. Let us see him not as we see him every day in photo ops. So that became my specialty.”

“The pictures you see here in black and white are significant because there was no other photographer there but me,” she continued, “except, of course, the President's photographer or the visiting president's photographer. But the regular press corps wasn't there, and I loved doing that. I got to know the presidents because I was always around. It was special, and different, and it was fun. And I found all the presidents were fascinating individuals.”

Walker ’59 would go on to capture some of the most raw and stunning behind-the-scenes moments of four presidents: Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton, as well as both presidential campaigns for Hillary Clinton. Winning multiple awards for her efforts, including from World Press, the White House News Photographers Association, and the National Press Photographers Association, her photographs are also in the collection of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Minneapolis Museum of Art, the National Gallery of Art, and the Smithsonian National Museum of American History.

As the conversation drew to a close, Dr. Kaenzig asked Walker ’59 if she would share a final reflection or advice for students.

"I look at all of you, and I think you're all going to do fine,” she responded with conviction, “and I’ll tell you why. It's because you're here. When I think about Foxcroft and what it did for me; it was a school that gave me confidence ... and I learned how to say thank you ... I don't mean to go on about what the School did for me, but it gave me the best friends in my life, and they still are my best friends … Good luck to all of you."

Following a robust Q&A that included the ever-important “Are you a Fox or Hound?” (she’s a Fox), Walker ’59 had lunch with Photography 1, 2, and 3 students and then spent more than an hour, seated just outside the new darkroom she generously donated in the Mars STEAM Building, answering their questions and sharing stories.

Thank you to Diana Hardin Walker ’59 for her time and to the Alison Harrison Goodyear ’29 Fellowship Program for providing this wonderful experience for our community.

Watch a video of the 2026 Alison Harrison Goodyear ’29 presentation.