'An ominous time'

Robert Nott |

7/3/2008 - 7/4/08

It was a year of hope and loss, of dashed dreams and civil unrest, of a trip to the moon and a new X rating for films, of political assassinations and the premiere of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In. It was a year with so many milestone events captured on camera that, collectively, the images seem to speak mostly of turmoil, pain, and lots of things gone wrong.

The year was 1968, and the Monroe Gallery of Photography pays tribute to it with the exhibition It Was Forty Years Ago Today, which opens on Saturday, July 5. Photographer Bill Eppridge, whose black-and-white image of an Ambassador Hotel busboy attempting to help slain presidential candidate Robert Kennedy is a searing reminder of unfulfilled promise, will be on hand to sign copies of his book A Time It Was: Bobby Kennedy in the Sixties.

Eppridge is one of 32 photographers whose work is featured in the show. There are images by Steve Schapiro, who covered protesters at an anti-Nixon rally, the aftermath of Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination, and a student riot at Columbia University. There are Bill Ray's fashion shots, including images of the popular psychedelic looks and an Yves Saint Laurent model showing off a see-through dress. There are John Jay's movie stills from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey and Ken Regan's image of the 50,000-strong crowd that marched on Washington, D.C., in June in support of the Poor People's Campaign.

The show's subject matter includes politicians, athletes, celebrities, musicians (this was the year Johnny Cash recorded Live at Folsom Prison), and nude couples who took part in an aquatic group encounter session — part of the sexual/spiritual revolution of the time.

For Monroe Gallery co-owner Sid Monroe, Bobby Kennedy's death nearly midway through 1968 signified the end of a collective optimism within the country — as well as the continuation of the Vietnam War, which Kennedy vowed to end by removing American troops if he was elected president. One may see parallels between Kennedy's promise to change not just the direction of the war but the direction of the country and Barack Obama's presidential campaign this year, Monroe noted. "That's certainly a similar situation," Monroe said. "And this show looks back at how history not so much repeats itself but influences current events."

Speaking by phone from his home in New Milford, Connecticut, Eppridge said he sees parallels as well. While we may not be any worse off than we were in 1968, Eppridge said he looks back at that year as "probably the most important year in the history of this country. I think all kinds of things were set in motion — bad things, not good — that year. I don't understand why it all happened then, but it did. It was an ominous time."

Eppridge first met Kennedy early in 1966, after Life magazine assigned him to cover Kennedy as he campaigned for other Democratic candidates in that year's election. Two years later Eppridge volunteered to cover Kennedy's presidential bid for Life. Today, the photojournalist acknowledges it was tough to be objective.

"He had a wonderful way of grabbing people and getting them to hang on to him — you believed him," Eppridge said of Kennedy. "He was not a terribly outgoing man; he was really inner-directed. But he made you feel like you were in it with him, so being an objective journalist with that kind of situation is very difficult. I know [that] several people asked to be taken off the campaign because they couldn't be objective anymore."

Eppridge was there in Los Angeles' Ambassador Hotel as Kennedy made his way through the kitchen after making a speech on the day of the California primary. Eppridge and other journalists, including Jimmy Wilson, a CBS cameraman, often served as Kennedy's unofficial bodyguards by providing a wedge between the candidate and surging crowds. But instead of crossing the ballroom to exit, Kennedy turned to go through the kitchen, the quickest way to make it to the press room. He got ahead of his entourage, and Eppridge figures he was about 12 feet behind the senator when shots were fired.

There were eight shots in all, and Eppridge, who had covered wars and revolutions, estimated it was a .25-caliber pistol. (It was a .22, and in case you've forgotten the name of the assassin, it was Sirhan Sirhan, who is still serving a life sentence.) Eppridge began taking photos, including the famous one of busboy Juan Romero attempting to lift Kennedy's head.

"At that time, being a journalist, my immediate instinct was, 'You are now a historian, and you've got to do this.' I was in that case doing my job. There was nothing I could do to help him. Nothing. There were probably 10 doctors in the room. I did what I felt I had to do."

Eppridge said he shot the image of Kennedy and Romero in black-and-white because it was easier for Life's photo department to develop black-and-white for a quick turnaround, but most of his shots of the Kennedy campaign are in color. In 1972, when Life shut down, the magazine gave Eppridge an enlarged image of his original photo. He never hung it on the wall, instead opting to stick it behind a couch in his Laurel Canyon home. A fire destroyed his home and most of his belongings, but the photo, though burned around its edges, survived.

In his work, Eppridge has covered the plight of the wild mustang, heroin addiction in America, the rise of the Beatles, revolution in Panama, and the Vietnam War. He acknowledges, with a touch of weary resignation perhaps, that the Kennedy photo has somewhat defined his career.

"There are other things I have done, things I'm quite proud of," he said. "I've been to wars and riots and revolutions, but it seems that you always end up being remembered for that one image in particular, and that one is —."

He paused, then continued. "Eddie Adams, for God's sake, who made the picture of General Loan killing the Viet Cong on the street, is remembered primarily for that picture. Nick Ut, who shot that little girl who had been burned by napalm running, the same thing. We all have an awful lot of things that we do that gets narrowed down to one image, and in a lot of cases I wish it wasn't that way.

"I wish I hadn't made that picture," he said of the assassination photo. "I wish I'd never had to make it."

details

It Was Forty Years Ago Today

Opening reception 5-7 p.m. Saturday, July 5; through Sept. 27

Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar Ave., 992