Oct 25, 2013

Legendary Life photographer and master mentor Bill Eppridge, best known for documenting the 1968 presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy and his assassination, died Oct. 3, 2013.

: Bill Eppridge, in 2008 at his home in New Milford, Conn. The iconic Life photographer died Oct. 3, 2013, at the age of 75. A young Eppridge spent much of 1968 photographing the Robert F. Kennedy campaign for Life magazine, but also covered for the magazine stories such as life in the Soviet Union, Woodstock, war in Vietnam, struggling actress Barbra Streisand and behind the scenes of Oscar and the Academy Awards. (Christopher T. Assaf/Baltimore Sun)

: Robert F. Kennedy campaigns in Hammond, Indiana, 1968. From “A Time It Was: Bobby Kennedy in the Sixties” by Bill Eppridge

: Robert F. Kennedy asleep aboard a campaign plane. From “A Time It Was: Bobby Kennedy in the Sixties” by Bill Eppridge

: Senator Robert F. Kennedy, 1968. From “A Time It Was: Bobby Kennedy in the Sixties” by Bill Eppridge

: Ambassador Hotel busboy Juan Romero kneels next to the body of Kennedy after the senator was shot on June 5,1968. When Life magazine ceased publication in 1972, Eppridge went to New York to pick up this 16-by-20-inch print. In the epilogue of his book, photographer Bill Eppridge wrote that he had never hung the print on the wall but instead put it behind his sofa. Years later, a canyon fire totally destroyed his house. The day after the fire, he found the picture behind the sofa mostly protected from the fire. (Eppridge’s photograph of his original burned print) “A Time it Was: Bobby Kennedy in the Sixties”

: Watching the Robert F. Kennedy funeral train from Boradway, June 8,1968. Baltimore, Md. From “A Time It Was: Bobby Kennedy in the Sixties” by Bill Eppridge

: Christopher T. Assaf when he attended “Barnstorm,” The Eddie Adams Workshop VI October 8-11, 1993. Bill Eppridge was the team leader for Assaf’s group that documented life around the Roscoe River in New York. (handout scanned 09/23/04)

: The special section given to all participants in the Eddie Adams Workshop VI. Assaf was a member of the Turquoise Team lead by Bill Eppridge. (Courtesy of Alex Garcia/Chicago Tribune) The Impact of the Eddie Adams Workshop (Chicago Tribune)

: The Nikkormat FT camera Eppridge used to make the photograph of Robert Kennedy wounded and on the floor of the Ambassador Hotel kitchen just after Midnight, June 5, 1968. (Christopher T. Assaf/Baltimore Sun)

: Boxes of Bill Eppridge’s prints for the book “A Time it Was: Bobby Kennedy in the Sixties.” Christopher T. Assaf/Baltimore Sun)

: Osteoperosis, a genetic disposition in Bill Eppridge’s family, and years of carrying camera gear have worn on the former Life magazine photographer. He lived in Connecticut with his wife, and editor, Adrienne Aurichio. (Christopher T. Assaf [Sun Photographer]

: “A Time It Was: Bobby Kennedy in the Sixties” by Bill Eppridge

: Bill Eppridge posed for Baltimore Sun photographer Christopher T. Assaf in 2008 as the 40th anniversary of Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination approached. Through the years Epprdige slowly developed the ability to to talk about what he witnessed in the Ambassador Hotel and shared through his photographs that appeared in the pages of Life and his books. (Christopher T. Assaf /Baltimore Sun)

A photojournalist habitually works alone, even while surrounded by people. But the mind of the photographer, camera in hand and to eye, is strongly influenced by external sources that seep into the highlights and shadows of the resulting work.

Throughout my career a mob of people have helped or influenced me in ways difficult to describe or calculate – an immeasurable amount when viewing slices of my own body of work.

My high school journalism adviser Susan (Coughenour) Massey. Then Wichita Eagle staff photographer Jeff Tuttle. Kansas State professor Linda Puntney. Orange County (Calif.) Register picture editor Michele Cardon. Former CityTalk editor Dave Wieczorek. There are more names; too many to mention. Some mentored me directly, while others moved through with minimal presence.

But then there is Bill Eppridge. A seminal figure in photojournalism circles, he worked as a staff photographer for Life magazine and later Sports Illustrated. The passionate Eppridge shone a bright light into the depravity of heroin addiction, intimately covered The Beatles, and spent the Apollo 13 crisis in the Lovell household. He shared his visual experiences from Vietnam, Woodstock and nearly any other major event of the 1960s. Most prominently, however, he documented the 1968 presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy and his tragic assassination.

Bill Eppridge died Oct. 3, 2013, of complications from an infection. He was 75.

My time with Eppridge was brief but intense. One of 100 participants in the Eddie Adams Workshop, as a member of the Turquoise Team led by the charismatic Eppridge, I was immersed in, and drowned by, photography. It was a photojournalistic overindulgence that, to this day, is hard to untangle and interpret yet its remnants slip into all I do. Looking back I learned more during those exhaustive days and nights, exploring photography and the Roscoe River, with Eppridge and the fellow participants, than semesters of school.

Tears still threaten my eyes as I think of Eppridge presenting his Kennedy work to the workshop. Standing tall before of a barn full of cranky, sleepless, (and likely hung over) photographers, Eppridge spoke eloquently about the Kennedy photographs and his new book, opening up for the first time about the moments that changed him forever.

When Sirhan Sirhan’s fatal gunshots rang out in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel, Eppridge reacted as an experienced photojournalist, like the many professionals we saw after the Boston Marathon bombing. Setting aside his emotions to make the stark, harrowing image of a bloodied Kennedy in the arms of kitchen worker Juan Romero – an image, one of the best known of the ‘60s, that defined a crucial time in American history.

The 1993 book “Robert Kennedy: The Last Campaign” marked the first time he had revisited the images, and the emotions, that had trailed him for the 25 years (at the time) following Robert F. Kennedy’s assassination.

When the 40th anniversary of the death came around, I visited Eppridge in his Connecticut home where he lived with wife and editor Adrienne Aurichio. A part of the 1993 workshop as well, Aurichio had discovered a trove of color photographs from Eppridge’s time with Kennedy for Life. The two created “A Time It Was: Bobby Kennedy in the Sixties,” Eppridge’s epic poem of a book published prior to the anniversary.

“Every day I think about it,” Eppridge said during that 2008 interview for The Baltimore Sun. “Bad dreams go away. … I don’t think nightmares ever do.”

Bill Eppridge

Age: 75, March 20, 1938 – Oct. 3, 2013

Education: Bachelor’s degree in photojournalism, University of Missouri

Career: Photographer for Life magazine where he covered Barbra Streisand in Paris, the 50th anniversary of the Soviet Revolution, the Beatles’ first visit to the U.S., civil unrest in Mississippi and the war in Vietnam; staff photographer for Sports Illustrated; has covered such things as the Olympics and the America’s Cup, the Mount St. Helens eruption and the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.

Awards: 2011 Lucie Award for Achievement in Photojournalism; National Press Photographers Association’s Joseph A. Sprague Memorial Award; The Missouri School of Journalism’s Missouri Honor Medal for Distinguished Service; Twice named NPPA College Photographer of the Year.

Books: The Beatles: Six Days that Changed the World. February 1964 (2014); A Time It Was: Bobby Kennedy in the Sixties (2008); Robert Kennedy: The Last Campaign (1993); provided photographs for Upland Passage: A Field Dog’s Education (1992) and Jake: A Labrador Puppy at Work and Play (1992)

Links:
Behind the Kennedy Assassination Photographs (Life)

Epic Vision: Bill Eppridge (Baltimore Sun)

The Impact of the Eddie Adams Workshop (Chicago Tribune)

Panic in Needle Park (Life)

Apollo 13: Life with the Lovell family (Life)