Who Owns The Marshall Hawkins Copyrights?

The answer to this question is shrouded in mystery and the one person who can solve the mystery has gone
silent..

There are two significant news stories and only one can be true. To wit:

⦁ Marshall Hawkins gave away the copyrights to his lifetime body of work to someone twenty-seven years
his junior and someone who Marshall and his Wife had little-to-no personal and / or social contact. There
was friendliness, but no best buddy relationship between Marshall Hawkins and Robert McClanahan.

⦁ Someone has claimed to own the copyrights to Marshall Hawkins' lifetime body of work and has failed to
produce any documentation to support that claim.

Background ...

Marshall Hawkins began his photographic career as a wartime photographer attached to a SeaBee battalion in
the South Pacific. Following WWII, Mr. Hawkins made a living as a photographer for weddings and social events,
in and around Amherst, Virginia. His work was seen by an influential horsewoman in northern Virginia and Mr.
Hawkins was convinced to relocate north and change his photographic repertoire from weddings to horses and
the Hunt Field.

Marshall Hawkins was vaulted onto the world stage when he captured, in the iconic image of the First Lady,
Jacqueline Kennedy, nose diving over the head of her horse while attempting to jump a fence. From that
moment forward Mr. Hawkins was the "go to" photographer for all things horses. Since there were no witnesses
to the event, other than Mr. Hawkins and the First Lady, rumors flew through the horse world that Mr. Hawkins
had spooked the First Lady's horse in order to capture the image. There are those, today, who still believe this is
what happened, but others strongly believe it's a conspiracy theory.

Regardless of the rumors, Mr. Hawkins and Jacqueline Kennedy (Onassis) maintained a longtime friendship and
often met at horse related events in and around northern Virginia.

Marshall Hawkins also traveled to capture other iconic photographs, especially in Kentucky, where he took
numerous iconic photos of Secretariat.

Mr. Hawkins' business model was to take pictures on spec, develop the photographs and then sell them to the
persons in each photograph. Prices ranged from $75.00 per photograph to $250.00 to have the photograph
matted and framed. In the 2012 obituary for James "Jimmie" Young, Orange County Hunt MFH, who collaborated
with Mr. Hawkins on the publication of the coffee table book, Marshall Hawkins : Field of Horses, Mr. Young
estimated Mr. Hawkins' photographic inventory at 300,000 photographs. That’s an extraordinary number of

1
photographs by any measure.

During their collaboration for the book, Mr. Young removed thousands of photographs from the Hawkins
residence in Warrenton, Virginia to use as a library to select the 194 images which were published in the book.
Mr. Young never returned any of the images to the Hawkins family. Mr. Young went on to publish additional
editions of the coffee table book, including an edition for the Irish market, but never shared the royalty proceeds
with the Hawkins family.

While 300,000 seems like an extraordinary number, a conservative estimate of 100,000 photographs, at an
average price of $100.00 per photograph, would calculate to a 1988 value of $10M for Mr. Hawkins' horse world
body of work. Even at a $50.00 average per photograph, that's still $5M, or quite a tidy sum in 1980s dollars.

Foreground ...

I knew Marshall Hawkins' daughter, Joan, in 1987. I ate dinner at their home on several occasions. Marshall took
me on a tour of a room, inside the residence and above his basement photographic studio, where he had stacked
thousands of developed photographs, each in its own manila envelope, ready to sell to Hunt Field and horse
world customers. It was like walking through a corn maze.

I lost touch with Joan over the years, but in January 2020, I located her, via facebook, in a rural area outside of
the Commonwealth of Virginia. We spent the first month catching up on old times and sharing what each had
been up to over the past thirty-three years.

Eventually, the discussion turned toward her Father's body of work

I proposed to put my career experience to work and start a project to locate and recover cameras, photographs,
negatives, etc. which had been taken from the Hawkins family's residence and her Father's basement
photographic studio. Items and artifacts which seemed to rightfully belong to Joan. I would provide research and
investigative resources as well as financial support if she would provide institutional knowledge to fill in the gaps.

Joan agreed.

The research quickly led us to Robert "Pooch" McClanahan, who worked in Marshall's photo studio as a teenager
and eventually, after serving time in the military and attending the U.S. Navy Photographic School, opened
McClanahan's Camera (now branded as McCamera.com) in Warrenton, Virginia.

I opened an email / telephone exchange with Cindy Ellis, Pooch's daughter and General Manager at the camera
store, which led to a phone conversation with Pooch, himself, on March 27, 2020. It was during this phone
conversation that Pooch emphatically stated he owned all of the copyrights to Marshall Hawkins' lifetime body of
work. He also stated, several times, he was scanning the Hawkins photographs in his possession. This appears to
be a business plan to mount an online stock photograph retail enterprise to sell images of Hawkins photographs.
If Pooch McClanahan does not own the copyrights to Hawkins' lifetime body of work, then scanning Hawkins
photographs to create derivative products (i.e., digital images) is copyright infringement.

When presented with Pooch McClanahan's assertion / claim that he owned all of Marshall Hawkins' copyrights,

2
Joan Hawkins stated, "No way. My Father would never have given away his copyrights to anyone."

This clearly set off alarm bells and raised a red flag of interest, which prompted me to send the following email,
several times, to Cindy:

Dear Cindy,

The Marshall Hawkins research project continues to plod along. However, I have collected information
which raises questions I hope you, or your Father, can answer.

In my first, and brief, telephone conversation with your Father, he told me that he owned the copyrights
to all of Marshall Hawkins' photographic work. In my mind, that would include the WWII photos, Hunt
Field photos, photos of Secretariat (in Kentucky), etc.

However, I have located / identified a handful of persons who have Marshall Hawkins photographs (in
manila folders), which may be being used for retail purposes.

The obvious questions are:

⦁ If your Father holds the copyrights, is he aware of others having possession of Marshall Hawkins
photographs?

⦁ Based on your Father's assertion that he owns the copyrights, has your Father attempted to
recover the inventories of Hawkins' photos held by other people?

⦁ Based on your Father's assertion that he owns the copyrights, do you, or your Father have any
documentation which clearly articulates the transfer of copyright ownership from Marshall
Hawkins to your Father?

Respectfully,

Patrick Allen

While previous conversations / discussions with Cindy and / or Pooch have been timely replied to, this email
caused the line of communication to go immediately silent. To answer the last question, the McClanahans could
have easily scanned the copyright transfer document and sent it as an email attachment, or used a smart phone
to capture an image of the copyright transfer document and sent the image as an email attachment. The
McClanahans chose to do neither.

This, alone, raises suspicion as to whether or not Pooch McClanahan owns the copyrights to Marshall Hawkins'
lifetime body of photographic work. Additional attempts to communicate with the McClanahans have gone
unanswered.

If a copyright transfer document suddenly appears, the document must be subjected to forensic testing and
handwriting analysis to establish its authenticity.

Pooch McClanahan had several opportunities to demonstrate his ownership of the Hawkins copyrights. They

3
include, but are not limited to, the following:

⦁ During the March 27, 2020, phone conversation, Pooch spoke about James "Jimmie" Young's
collaboration with Marshall Hawkins to produce the Field of Horses coffee table book, first released in
late 1988, just days before Marshall Hawkins passed away and the fact that James Young had thousands
of Marshall Hawkins' photographs. Pooch McClanahan made no effort to recover the photographs and
negatives he claimed to have ownership of.

⦁ According to an eyewitness account, James Young backed a pickup truck to Marshall's basement
photographic studio and removed cameras, photographs and negatives several days before Marshall’s
death on December 3, 1988. When he was confronted and told to get off the property, he dropped the
box he was holding and drove away.

⦁ A retail store, Hawkins Prints, operated on Fifth Street in Warrenton, Virginia during 1990, selling
Marshall Hawkins' photographs. Again, Pooch McClanahan made no effort to serve the store owner with
a cease and desist order and / or file a case of copyright infringement against the store owner for
distributing the store's Marshall Hawkins photographs, whose copyrights, allegedly, belonged to Pooch
McClanahan..

Another account, which directly relates to the pillage of Marshall Hawkins’ photographic body of work, involves
James “Jimmie” Young, in 1990, using a rubber stamp of Marshall Hawkins’ signature, stamped the back of
numerous photographs, presumably to increase the value of each.

As Jimmie stamped the back of each photograph he laid the photos face down, one on top of the other. It was
only after he completed stamping the collection of photographs he realized the ink from the back of the previous
photograph bled onto the photo side of each subsequent photograph, displaying Marshall Hawkins’ signature
backwards. Thus, rendering the entire pile of Hawkins photographs defaced and worthless.

James Young, subsequently, took the box of photographs to the Hawkins Prints store, dropped or dumped the
box of defaced photographs onto the floor and according to the store owner said the photographs were not
worth anything to him He then turned and walked out.

Under U.S. Copyright Law, the transfer of copyright ownership cannot take place, or be legally binding, via
telephone conversation, face-to-face conversation, or a handshake across the top rail of a horse fence. It must
be a signed document, in ink, by the conveying party ... no pencil, rubber stamp or digital signature allowed.

So, the question remains : Who Owns the Marshall Hawkins Copyrights?

NOTE : The above narrative has been researched, compiled and written based on comments and statements
directly obtained from persons mentioned in the narrative as well as eye witness accounts of events described in
the above research / investigative narrative.

4
------------------------ contact information ------------------

Patrick Allen

patrickwilliamallen@comcast.net

------------ additional notes ---------------------

Regarding James “Jimmie” Young : James L. Young passed away on May 25, 2012. However, information
provided in the above narrative, attributed to James L. Young, were obtained from Mr. Young’s obituary as well
as text he authored for the Field of Horses coffee table book. Eye witness accounts of Mr. Young’s raid on the
Hawkins basement photographic studio as well as the dumping of defaced Marshall Hawkins photographs on the
floor at the Fifth Street Hawkins Prints store (Warrenton, Virginia) were provided by Joan Hawkins, the eye
witness.

Patrick Allen Research / Investigation Credentials : Political Corruption Investigations (across the political
spectrum), Merger & Acquisition Evaluations and Commercial Copyright Infringement Investigations.