PhotoPlus Expo 2008-Day Two- the Icon & the New Guys
At an event where talent and superstars are ubiquitous, there was a clear star of the show today–the one and only Bill Eppridge. In an amazing event held at the PhotoPlus theater hosted by pulitzer prize-winning journalist formerly of CNN Peter Arnett (now teaching in China), 50 years of a storied photojournalism career was honored in stories and images.
For those who don’t know, Bill took many iconic photographs including the pics of the Beatles’ first trip to America and the poignant and iconic photo of a Los Angeles busboy cradling a dying Robert Kennedy in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel, just seconds after he was shot.
These legendary photos are the result of a three-day assignment for Life to follow a “little known” band called the Beatles, including their visit to the Ed Sullivan show and another assignment to cover Robert Kennedy’s entire presidential candidacy.
While it was thrilling and spine-tingling to see these photos up close on a huge screen while the two men chatted about the experience like they were in their own living room–a third project captivated me immensely. It was Bill’s compelling photo series of Needle Stick Park.
In 1965, he followed around and lived with a white, middle class couple addicted to shooting up heroin. This experience seemed to really resonate within the silence of the 300 people gathered. The series demonstrated the absolute beauty of photography’s realism and the talent of man who could have only taken such intimate pictures if he were able to blend in or almost become part of the dangerous circle he was capturing.
“You become part of it,” said Bill. “You dress the way they dress, you talk the way they talk…”
Added Arnett: “The best photographers have the ability to blend in.”
We saw the whole stream of 20-plus photographs that told their harrowing story of the love between and man and a woman competing for the love of a fix.- Only about five in the series made it onto Life magazine.
The son of a judge from New Jersey and the daughter of an upper middle class Long Island family, Karen and John, allowed Bill into their lives of petty theft, prostitution, hospitalization and desperation.
It was Bill that talked the couple into doing the shoot-convincing them to do something good for someone else for a change. They did that as well as shatter the stereotype of who a “druggie” was. The photo series was the inspiration for Al Pacino’s first movie “Panic in Needle Park.” Arnett said the series was like a “beautifully written novel.” I’d have to agree. It was visual poetry. One of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.
But one of the scariest.
“His list of assignments are unbelievable in breath and would test any photographer,” said Arnett.
Some of Bill’s mottos include: “They pay you one day’s work for three days–one to worry, one to shoot and one to recover.” “You only get one perfect shot and you need to be ready.” “‘You have to do your research so when you go in you are ready for anything.” “I never want to shoot the same thing twice,” said Bill to his editors at Life.
Another compelling part of the talk was the fact that Bill got so close to Robert Kennedy because he spent so much time on the road with him. He believes that he would have been an amazing president–that he had a talent that was probably more incredible than his brother John.
If you’d like to hear more stories about the Robert Kennedy, Bill has a book out called “A Time it Was.”
In other PhotoPlus news, there are some new guys exhibiting at the expo for the first time. At least one is extremely notable.
Microsoft.
Why are they here?
Well, that is a question that 20-year veteran photographer Jeff Greene, now a technical evangelist for Microsoft can answer. He is part of the company’s Icons of Imaging program.
It seems the company is throwing its hat into the ring to compete against the likes of Adobe, Apple and others by taking charge in marketing the upgrades to Microsoft Pro Photo Tools, Microsoft Expressions Media (2) and Phase One’s Capture One- Media Pro- is an already released product that is an image management/editing/archiving software that’s compatible with Apple/Mac.
Pumping up the marketing by talks like Greene’s I think shows their belief in the product that is billed as NOT being “cool and sexy” like other products are today, but something you will thank your lucky stars about in several years when you’re looking for that photograph that you took today.
“It’s an extra insurance policy,” said Greene.
The strategic partnership with Capture One was due to realization that the Phase One product had “great processing software.” The software has a guided, logical workflow and has a strength in skin tonality.
The pro fashion and commercial photographers loves this,” says Greene. But it is easy enough for a mom to organize her family photos on. It provides lots of areas to embed text.
Greene added that audiences are “wowed” that it takes only 90 seconds for him to load his 4,000 image collection.
Microsoft is offering a special show price of $199. See their web site for more information. Meanwhile, other newbie exhibitors to the show include: Hasselblad and Casio.