Abraham Zapruder

I've always been fascinated by the 'who shot JFK?' debate. The conspiracy theories, the cover ups and the major evidence at the heart of the discussion; the 26.6 seconds of 8mm footage shot by Abraham Zapruder as the President's motorcade passed by the Texas School Book Depository on Dealey Plaza on November 22nd 1963, 50 years ago this Friday.

Those 486 frames of Kodak Kodachrome II remain to this day the most famous and most analyzed frames that have ever been captured on film. When Zapruder sold the rights to Life magazine he tried to protect the public from seeing the full horror his camera had captured by making it a condition of the sale that they never print frame 313; the frame that shows the fatal head shot that caused Kennedy's skull to explode. The complete film was not seen by the public until 1975 when it was broadcast in the US on ABC's Goodnight America.

Since the advent of the Internet people have been reworking the footage to make it clearer; here's an interesting example that slows down, stabilizes and interpolates the original to give a panoramic view of the unfolding event:

JFK Assassination Zapruder// Stabilized Motion Panorama HD

Zapruder was left traumatized by the event and never used or owned another camera in his life.