WASHINGTON (AP).- The photographer who took the iconic picture of John F. Kennedy Jr. saluting his father's coffin during the slain president's 1963 funeral has died.

Stan Stearns, 76, died Friday at a hospice in Harwood, Md. His son, Jay Stearns, said the cause was cancer.

Stearns was assigned to cover John F. Kennedy's funeral on Nov. 25, 1963, as a photographer for United Press International. He would later describe standing outside the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington and being squeezed into a roped off area with 70 other photographers.

Stearns stood by as the president's flag-draped casket was loaded on to a horse-drawn caisson after the funeral. Through his telephoto lens, he watched as Jacqueline Kennedy leaned down to whisper to her son, who turned 3 years old that day. Then the boy stepped forward and saluted. Stearns' camera clicked.

The salute lasted less than five seconds. Though television cameras captured the moment, it was Stearns' photo that became famous. Stearns later said he learned other photographers missed the picture because they had focused on Jacqueline Kennedy or the president's coffin.

Stearns was supposed to walk with the funeral procession to Arlington but instead returned to UPI's office with his film. His angry boss demanded to know why he'd left. Stearns explained he had the picture of the day.

"I knew I got it," Stearns later said of the famous shot. "You know when you get it."

In 2007, obituaries for another photographer, Joe O'Donnell, mistakenly credited him with taking the famous image. Newspapers later corrected the error.

Stanley Frank Stearns was born May 11, 1935, in Annapolis. He attended Annapolis High School and began working as a photographer at the Capitol newspaper when he was 16. He worked as an Air Force photographer and for UPI before setting up his own photography studio in Annapolis, taking wedding pictures, portraits and graduation pictures of students at the U.S. Naval Academy.

Funeral services are planned for Tuesday in Annapolis.

Stearns didn't get rich off his famous photograph. He told the Baltimore Sun in 1999 that it earned him $25 in picture contest. But the image has become a part of history.

"The picture told the whole damn story," he later said.



Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.