How Photography Has Transformed the U.S. Presidential Election

 

Via Blind
October 19, 2020
By Miss Rosen

A new exhibition looks at how photography has been used to shape public image and garner public support for candidates campaigning for the most powerful office in the world.

Hillary Clinton during the 2008 Presidential Campaign, New Hampshire © Brooks Kraft / Monroe Gallery of Photography

“Politics is theater. It doesn't matter if you win. You make a statement. You say, ‘I'm here, pay attention to me,’” said Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California. Invariably photography, with its paradoxical ability to convey fact and fiction at the same time, has long played a major role in shaping political messages without ever saying a word.

The new exhibition, The Campaign, looks at how photographers have documented the race for the most powerful office in the world — that of the U.S. Presidency — over the past 80 years from the campaign trail to inauguration day. The exhibition, which features work by Cornell Capa, Bill Ray, John Leongard, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Neil Leifer, Brooks Kraft, and Nina Berman, among others, dates back to Thomas E. Dewey’s run in 1948, which resulted in one of the greatest upsets in election history.

1948 Republican Convention, Philadelphia, PA © Irving Haberman / Monroe Gallery of Photography

Irving Haberman’s vibrant crowd scene shows just how influential the photograph was, as countless members of the crowd bear placards with Dewey’s confident visage gazing intently at us, emoting the perfect blend of assurance and artifice Americans have grown to know and love.

The Tragic Hero

Bobby Kennedy campaigns in Indiana during May of 1968, with various aides and friends: former prizefighter Tony Zale and (right of Kennedy) N.F.L. stars Lamar Lundy, Rosey Grier, and Deacon Jones © Bill Eppridge / Monroe Gallery of Photography

“Reporters listen, photographers look,” photographer Bill Eppridge said during the Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 tragic run, which ultimately resulted in his shocking death on the campaign trail before he could clinch the Democratic nomination. Kennedy, whose public profile was closely welded to his brother’s legacy, understood the language of visibility and representation long before they became buzzwords. 

In Eppridge’s photograph of Kennedy campaigning in the Watts section of Los Angeles on the last day of the primary — just three years after riots against police brutality devastated the neighborhood — we see the former Attorney General symbolically standing on the shoulders of Black men, his wide smile standing in stark contrast to the cautious looks on their face. Eppridge’s image underscores the complex mixture of naïveté and hubris that privilege provides when confronting the rapacious specter of American violence.

The Kennedy campaign travels through the Watts section of Los Angeles on the last day before the primary, 1968 © Bill Eppridge / Monroe Gallery of Photography

The Power of Photography

This September, more than 73 million people tuned in to the first debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden — just the kind of ratings the President loves. As a failed businessman who rebranded his image through reality TV, Trump understands better than most the power image holds over the American public.

President Barack Obama campaigns in the rain, Glen Allen, Virginia, 2012 © Brooks Kraft / Monroe Gallery of PhotographyBeing camera ready became a necessity in 1960 when John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon held the first televised debate. Standing in the control room, Irving Haberman photographed the television studio as the scene unfolded, giving viewers a behind-the-scene look at this historic event. 

We focus our attention not on the action but on the TV monitor that beamed Kennedy’s radiant face into millions of American homes. The camera showed Kennedy as the picture of vitality an image that belied his actual health. Calm, cool, and collected, Kennedy soared while Nixon faltered — allowing the public to happily forgo the enduring wisdom of Edgar Allen Poe: “Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.”

John F. Kennedy, on-set monitor at the first-ever televised Presidential debate in 1960 © Irving Haberman / Monroe Gallery of Photography

Richard Nixon giving a speech to the residents of Suffolk County, NY while on the campaign trail in 1968 © Irving Haberman / Monroe Gallery of Photography

 

By Miss Rosen

Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer focusing on art, photography, and culture. Her work has been published in books, magazines, and websites including Time, Vogue, Artsy, Aperture, Dazed, and Vice, among others.

The Campaign 

Through November 15, 2020

Monroe Gallery, 112 Don Gaspar, Santa Fe, NM 87501

https://www.monroegallery.com/

Santa Fe, Rétrospective Bill Eppridge

White Barn, New Preston, CT, March 9, 2007 © Bill Eppridge

Via la Lettre de la Photographie

Bill Eppridge is one of the most accomplished photojournalists of the Twentieth Century and has captured some of the most significant moments in American history: he has covered wars, political campaigns, heroin addiction, the arrival of the Beatles in the United States, Vietnam, Woodstock, the summer and winter Olympics, and perhaps the most dramatic moment of his career – the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy in Los Angeles.

Born in Buenos Aires, the second of three children, young Bill Eppridge came to the U.S. and grew up in upstate New York near Rochester. In 1960, Eppridge refined his art and his eye at the University of Missouri, where he received his bachelor’s degree in journalism. While at the School of Journalism, Eppridge won a picture competition and first prize brought him to a week-long internship with LIFE magazine.
After his graduation, Eppridge worked for National Geographic, and then, LIFE magazine. With well over 100 assignments, he had already proved his talent by the time he was formally made a member of the exalted Life staff in 1964. His assignments with LIFE magazine marked some very important points in history, beginning with coverage of several wars in the early sixties.

Still later, Eppridge worked on environmental and outdoor stories for LIFE magazine until it ceased publication as a weekly in 1972. He then signed a corporate contract with Time Inc. “I tried all the magazines to see if I liked working for TIME or Fortune. I was there for the start of People.” Eventually in 1977, he joined Sports Illustrated. He describes his work with SI as “Sports with no balls” as he was not fond of shooting baseball, basketball, or football. “I prefer to do something that I’ve never done before”, he remarks. “Rather than specialize, I’m a generalist.”

For the first time, this exhibition presents many of Eppridge’s most important photo essays together, including:

The Beatles:
Bill Eppridge really didn’t know who the Beatles were, but “One morning my boss said, ‘Look, we’ve got a bunch of British musicians coming into town. They’re called the Beatles.’” Eppridge was at John F. Kennedy airport on February 7, 1964 awaiting the arrival of The Beatles. He continued to photograph The Beatles that day, and over the next several days. He was invited to come up to their room at the Plaza Hotel and “stick with them.” He was with them in Central Park and at the Ed Sullivan Show for both the rehearsal and the historic performance. He rode the train to Washington, D.C. with them for the concert at the Washington Coliseum, and photographed their Carnegie Hall performance on February 12, 1964
.
“These were four very fine young gentlemen, and great fun to be around,” Eppridge recalls. After he introduced himself to Ringo, who consulted with John, the group asked what he wanted them to do while being photographed for Life. “I’m not going to ask you to do a thing,” was Eppridge’s reply. “I just want to be there.” An exhibit of Eppridge’s Beatles photographs has been touring since 2001, and was seen by over 2 million people at the Smithsonian Museum.

Mississippi Burning: The James Cheney Funeral:
In late June of 1964, three civil rights workers in Mississippi went missing, kidnapped by Klu Klux Klansmen. One man was black, the other two were white. Their names were James Cheney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. Bill Eppridge arrived in Neshoba County shortly after the bodies of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman were pulled from the muck of an earthen dam on August 4, 1964. There are no pictures of the crime, just the brutal aftermath and the devastating grief and sorrow brought upon a family.

In 1967, eighteen men faced federal charges of civil rights violations in the slayings of Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman. Seven were convicted by an all-white jury, eight were acquitted and three were released after jurors deadlocked. The state of Mississippi prosecuted no one for 38 years. But in 2005—after six years of new reporting on the case by Jerry Mitchell of the Jackson Clarion-Ledger—a sawmill operator named Edgar Ray Killen was indicted on charges of murder.

On June 21, 2005, exactly 41 years after the three men were killed, a racially integrated jury, without clear evidence of Killen’s intent, found him guilty of manslaughter instead. Serving three consecutive 20-year terms, he is the only one of six living suspects to face state charges in the case.

A sign in rear window of car in Philadelphia, Mississippi, 1964

©Bill Eppridge:

Robert F. Kennedy:
One of Eppridge’s most memorable and poignant essays was his coverage of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, first in 1966, and then again on the road with RFK during the 1968 presidential campaign. On June 5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, he was instructed by his boss to “stay as close as you can to Bobby”. Kennedy assured Eppridge that he would be part of his immediate group, which meant that wherever the Democratic candidate went, Eppridge wouldn’t be far behind. His photograph of the wounded Senator on the floor of the Ambassador Hotel kitchen seconds after he was shot has been described as a modern Pieta. Among the thoughts Eppridge had at that moment was a very loud and clear one: “You are not just a photojournalist, you’re a historian.”


Bill Eppridge
Until November 20, 2011
Monroe Gallery of Photography
112 Don Gaspar
Santa Fe, NM 87501
505.992.0800
Gallery hours are 10 to 5 every day, Monday through Sunday

Bill Eppridge will conduct an exhibition walk-through and gallery talk on Friday, November 4, from 5  to 7 PM.

Links

http://www.monroegallery.com/