An excerpted page from A Time It Was — the original copy of my photograph of Bobby Kennedy’s assassination, after surviving a fire in my house. (Copyright Bill Eppridge.)
Hey Folks:
I’ll be at the AIPAD Photo Show at the Armory in NYC this Saturday afternoon. You can likely find me in the vicinity of the Monroe Gallery’s Booth (#317) — where some of my work will be hanging (such as the print above).
See you at the show!
Cheerz,
Bill
In case you’re in the area: Some of my Beatles pictures are up in Winnipeg right now at the Manitoba Museum (through April 11). Get all the details here.
Cheerz,
Bill
Wyoming, 1970. (Copyright Bill Eppridge.)
Last week I received an email out of the blue from a woman named Tatiana. She said that she was one of the two children bouncing on a trampoline in a photograph that I made in Cheyenne, Wyoming in 1970 for a Life magazine issue on The New Shape of America. The other child was her brother. Tatiana still lives in Wyoming.
The story behind the photograph:
Three Life photographers were assigned a major essay on Highway 80 that ran in a January 1971 special issue. George Silk did the east coast; John Dominis did the Central portion; and I shot the West. Highway 80 had not been officially completed at the time, but would be replacing Route 40 as the main east-west route across the country.
The photograph is indeed in Cheyenne, Wyoming. The way I covered my part of the story was simple. I had an assistant, Martha Faye, and we picked up the highway in Chicago. Martha drove, and I looked. We headed west on Highway 80, exiting when I thought there might be something interesting to look at on local roads along the way.
Every once in a while when I saw something I liked, we’d stop the car. I’d grab the cameras, and get out to see if there was really a picture. And if it were a town, we wandered around until I saw something that interested me.
Driving through Cheyenne I just happened to see a fence and a couple of little heads bouncing up and down on the other side. I told Martha to stop the car, then got out and went over to the fence. Through a crack, I saw two kids jumping on a trampoline in a back yard. I knocked on the door of the home, and the mother answered. I introduced myself, told her what I was doing, and she invited me in. The kids were still bouncing on the trampoline, and I told the mother, “don’t stop them.” She just said to them something like, “this is a friend of mine, keep jumping.” I photographed the kids for two or three minutes, thanked her, gave her my card, and left. It was just a grabbed situation that ended up so nice.
My image (at top), someone else’s art: The Mysterious Allure of Rural America, by Deborah Faye Lawrence.
Lately some of my photographs have been showing up in unlikely places on the internet, and in works by others. Life.com made a business decision to put the entire picture collection online and this has led to misuse and theft along with legitimate licensed uses of the photographs.
A case in point is a famous photograph that I took of the Barstow to Vegas motorcycle race in 1971 (see below). I shot the photograph from a helicopter at the start of this legendary race. It’s been appropriated by artist Deborah Faye Lawrence in her work titled, “The Mysterious Allure of Rural America,” 2008. My photograph is more than one-third of her work which she describes as “acrylic, collage, varnish on board.” She is working in the style of Richard Prince who famously appropriated the work of photographers who shot the Marlboro cigarette advertisements. Both Prince and Lawrence copied the works as their own, without attribution.
My photograph: Barstow to Vegas Motorcycle Race, 1971.
Lawrence’s appropriation of my work is a meaningless rip-off. It’s a naive juxtaposition between cliched images in her work, and what she wants the viewer to believe about rural life and it’s dark side. I don’t see a definitive statement, nor do I see where my photograph relates to any other image in her artwork except to enhance the bottom two-thirds of her work. Remove my photograph and the composition has no impact. The artist used my work to make her collaged work look better.
The Barstow to Vegas photograph was shot in 1971, in the Nevada desert, in the 20th century. I risked my life many times to make photographs — in this case I was standing on the skid outside a helicopter at 500 feet. Seeing my work stolen in this manner just flat-out offends me because the artist used something that she didn’t earn or create for her own benefit.
According to her website, Hayes is widely known as a collagist, and claims to be working in the same spirit and style as Romare Beardon and Max Ernst. She says, “I have been using found imagery and text in my artwork for a long time.” On close examination of both Beardon and Ernst’s works, they did not appropriate other works in this manner, and their work was far more original. And, in all likelihood, she ‘found’ my work on the internet.
The aftermath.
Hey Folks: Here’s the last of my Woodstock posts. (At least, the last for now.) Hope you enjoyed the show.
Cheerz,
Bill
A man in flag pants at the festival. (Photos by Bill Eppridge.)
A few more pix from the archive. I hope you’re enjoying them!
Cheerz,
Bill
(more…)
Well, I Don’t Give a Damn: Barry Melton of Country Joe and The Fish. (Photographs by Bill Eppridge)
More pictures from the archive! I’ve got two more days worth, so stay tuned.
Cheerz,
Bill
(more…)
A nude couple runs along the perimeter of the fence at Woodstock. (Photos by Bill Eppridge.)
I’ve been unearthing lots of photos from my 1969 Woodstock assignment in recent days. Here are a few more finds.
Cheerz,
Bill
(more…)
