Three of Winogrand's subjects are former U.S. presidents (two deceased and one resigned in disgrace); two are ex-governors (one now dead, the other crippled by a would-be-assassin's bullet); still another is an ex-astronaut who is currently a Democratic presidential aspirant. The portrait of John F. Kennedy at the 1960 Democratic convention shows him quite isolated at a podium, facing a barrage of dimly visible photographers. His head and raised right hand are outlined by a radiant, glowing light. In a monitor on the floor behind him, the viewer can see what the audience sees -- the mastery of media that so aided Kennedy's ascension to power. Beside the TV is, inexplicably, a gallon of probably cheap jug wine. In a 1969 Cape Canaveral (then Cape Kennedy) portrait of Lyndon Baines Johnson, Kennedy's successor stands somewhat askew on a small, dirty airstrip in front of Air Force One. He is flanked by the usual crew of security men, as well as local politicians whose proper Southern wives are dressed in nearly identical polyester summer dresses with white pumps and handbags and pristine white shortie gloves. LBJ seems to have just noticed the camera and assumed his "photography" stance; only Lady Bird, half hidden behind her husband, and wearing unfashionably dark shoes and carrying a dark purse, seems out of step.

Richard Nixon, unlike his predecessors, does not dominate the frame. Instead, in a 1969 image in the Century Plaza Hotel, Los Angeles, he appears almost lost among the flocked wallpaper and garish chandeliers, and dozens of press and Secret Service men. This president is small and awkward, placed (apparently) off-center from the real action and conveniently close to a waiting exit.

The governors Winogrand has photographed are at opposite poles in their relationships to, and experience of, power. Nelson Rockefeller harangues a crowd at the Hotel Roosevelt, 1968. One hand is thrust persuasively at the audience; the other, balled into a fist, pounds the podium for emphasis. In this image, as in many of the others, a fringe of sycophantic supporters displays the broad public smiles traditionally worn at such events. No one smiles much in the portrait of George Wallace, however, who is shown disembarking rather stiffly from his limousine at the 1964 Cotton Bowl in Dallas. Photographers stand at a fair distance from the governor; the mob of football fans is little more than texture in the far bleachers. A thick knot of sheriffs and plainclothesmen surround a tense Wallace. In a 1969 portrait, John Glenn, who was not then a politician, nonetheless skillfully uses the broad grin and firm, glad-handshake of a candidate as he works the crowd. In foregrounding the eager hand of the astronaut, Winogrand displays a fine sensitivity -- evident throughout these images -- to the nature of the public gesture. In many of the images, he seems oddly prophetic as well.

15 Big Shots includes activists as well as mainstream politicians. Betty Friedan is caught almost in flight at a 1969 Whitney Museum opening. She shows very little of the "public figure" in either expression or gesture, but is polite enough to allow the photographer momentary access. A very strong and rather disturbing image from 1972 places an ebullient Jesse Jackson and a bemused Hugh Hefner side by side among the ruins of a red-beans-and-rice Operation Push fund-raising dinner. None of the other guests, who are predominantly black, seem to share Jackson's theatrical enthusiasm. Instead, they mill disconsolately around the table, staring glumly into the distance or studying their plates intently. Winogrand's imagemaking seems to occur in the interstices when the public facade drops briefly and the official posture flags under the assault of cameras and microphones. He seems aware, too, that these are not, by any means, the most serious weapons we train on our elected and elects.

Among Winogrand's cultural favorites are two black athletes, a film director, a painter (who survived an assassination attempt), a best-selling author, a photographer and an actress (both of whom committed suicide). Muhammad Ali is seen in much the same light as the (other) politicians, surrounded by obsequious hangers-on, press, microphones and cameras. Jackie Robinson, in apparently the single personal audience, is seated on a modern couch beneath shelves of bound sets of books, in a rather Spartan room. He poses at talking on the telephone and bouncing a baseball into the air. Despite Winogrand's access to the athlete, there is a failure to establish a real connection or any comfortable rapport between subject and photographer. In the same way, the 1955 location shot of Marilyn Monroe with skirt blowing up around her shoulders, on the Seven-Year Itch set, is a cultural icon, but too much like the "8x10 glossy" to communicate much else. Like the delightful portrait of an impish John Huston on the set of Annie in 1981, it is located on a movie-set street corner and evidences a similar level of ersatz reality. The photograph of Norman Mailer at his fiftieth birthday party is a study in levels of adulation. Mailer leans confidentially from his podium towards a woman who punctuates her words with her hand. The hand becomes the center of the frame -- Mailer on one side, the woman and assorted admirers clustered on the other side of the lectern that separates them quite clearly into master and audience. Andy Warhol, seen at the same gala, carries all the predictable Warholian trappings for such an event -- a drink, a Polaroid camera and a small tape recorder. Life in these circles is always something to be recorded for posterity.

The most poignant photograph in 15 Big Shots is of photographer Diane Arbus at a 1969 Central Park love-in. All of the other participants seem to have left the scene; the park is in tatters. Arbus, field camera in hand, earnestly confronts the long-haired person whose back is turned to the viewer. Arbus clenches a rather wilted flower between her lips, but her entreaty seems unimpeded by the forlorn souvenir. Given the presence of the camera and the photographer, and a public event of some probably import, we can imagine that the subject of this dialog is, ultimately, whether or not and how to (or not to) photograph. In this image alone, Winogrand has pierced the facade of the "public" and encountered the question of private appearance versus photographic appropriation. Winogrand here seems virtually absent; the viewer comes upon a scene which exists not to be photographed but to be experienced.

In retrospect, these erstwhile big shots become rather small and gray. It is not the fault of the photographs, but of a culture so overpopulated with heroes and images of heroes that none holds reign for very long. Winogrand's Big Shots accurately reflect, and have become a part of, the history they record.