Bill Eppridge

I attended the Bill Eppridge presentation on his career in photojournalism. Mr. Eppridge discussed his extensive career, from photographing drug addicts to Barbra Streisand, Vietnam, to the Robert Kennedy campaign and assassination. I found the presentation surprisingly interesting. I went into it expecting it to just be a basic presentation of photojournalism, maybe give a few tips. But hearing about the stories behind the photographs made me realize how much more there is to photojournalism than just snapping a few good pictures and leaving. He described how difficult it is to get the perfect shot, how you just have to anticipate and be in the right position at the right time. I learned that to make an “epic poem,” as he described it, you have to get your subjects to not only trust you, but also ignore you. In photographing something as personal as an addiction and a fight to overcome it, he really had to reach a certain type of relationship with his subjects. Finally, I was impressed with his ability to recognize that sometimes you can’t help you just have to document. That would be a difficult thing to do, but his photographs of the Kennedy Assassination were filled with emotion and he was able to capture it because he chose to keep taking pictures. Mr. Eppridge’s presentation really gave me a better look at photojournalism in general and made me realize that it’s a lot more than just taking pictures.