Again not the best scan, but this one will make all photo interpreters happy. Attached is page 95 of Bill Eppridge and Hays Gorey's Robert Kennedy: The Last Campaign (New York: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1993). The caption reads: "Gunfire in the kitchen. At this point, Bill Eppridge is about twelve feet behind the senator. 'I push CBS cameraman Jim Wilson toward the shooting. My camera accidentally goes off.'"

Edited 12 Aug 2008, 9:52 pm: Since there was an issue with attachment space it makes more sense to post the lightened and clarified version here instead of the original, which is too dark to see anything. The lighter version gives a better immediate idea of what is in the scene.

From the 2nd post now deleted, where this lightened image originally appeared: "Most of this is a picture of the ceiling. We could assume it is Jim Wilson's head in dark silhouette at the bottom near the middle of the photo (holding up light meter?). The action seems focused at the bottom left of the picture, and the silhouette [off to the left of] the middle there bears some resemblance to a profile of Kennedy turned to his left."

Post deleted 12 Aug 2008, 9:57 pm

I'm interested in your interpretation of the lower right-hand quadrant of the photo, beneath a roughly horizontal line that seems to bisect a room partition/wall on the right, and containing alternate light and dark areas.

I see a wall (or partition) with two white (or light-colored) rags slung over it. There's a blonde guy heading into that area. To his left, apparently passing him and going in the opposite direction, looks like the left side of a man in a light-colored shirt. In the center-bottom looks like the back and possibly left side of a man's head (with white/light-colored collar?). In my original experiments on the image I lightened things quite a bit to try to get better details, but there's only so far that can go without bleeding things out into indistinguishable blobs of pixels.

Makes sense, given your close-up view.

Thanks.

I find the left lower quarter of the image of the most interest, for the reason that it appears to be the most congested area and possibly the original (pre-startled) focus of the cameraman (which focus I assume would have been Robert Kennedy). But apparently I've run out of attachment space since I've less than 50 kb left for a "Max. single upload size." So we'll have to wait until I can make some kind of arrangements for a closer, highly lightened view of the left lower quarter.

You're welcome, Charles. If I could show the lightened close-up of the other side (plus the entire lower bottom panorama view) I think it's kinda hard to avoid concluding it's likely to be a profile of RFK in the [left of] center of that section.

Edited to add "[left of] center etc"

I deleted the image in my second post to make room, which is kinda unhelpful since a lightened and clarified version of the original picture allowed for some orientation of what's going on in the scene. But here's the lower left quarter of the scene, extremely lightened.

The same scene at lower left of the picture, less lightened (a crop from the image now in the first post of the thread).

In re the possible RFK capture: I take it you're referring to the image that seems to show a full left profile, with almost the entire ear uncovered and sideburn clearly visible.

If I'm not misreading you, have you measured the "head" area to determine if its size is consistent with other heads and body parts more clearly depicted in the overall view?

Could the still camera apparently being held above a photographer's head be that of Mr. Enyart?

Yes. In my opinion that figure in profile bears a strong resemblance to Robert Kennedy.


My recollection is that Scott Enyart claimed that he jumped up onto a table to take his pictures, whereas Bill Eppridge was supposedly "about twelve feet behind the senator." (Presumably following RK at ground level.) The figure directly before him, whatever paraphernalia that is appearing above the figure's head, should be Jim Wilson: "I push CBS cameraman Jim Wilson toward the shooting. My camera accidentally goes off." (Which ought to raise the question whether or not Jim Wilson might have captured a thing or two on film or videotape.....and if so, what happened to that evidence.)

I've conducted no measurements to try to determine anything, since the scanned image was a bit crooked and since the scene is too dark for anything to be said to be clearly depicted. I believe I'll leave further photo interpretation to the acknowledged photo interpretation experts, now that they have the source after it sat around for 15 years. Hopefully they'll be able to do something positive with it, and remember that no one had to pay to get in.

Daniel,

GREAT PHOTO!

Have you considered using photobucket? takes away the worries of uploading restrictions.

Best to you,


Mike

Thank you, Mike, and thanks for the suggestion. I'd previously avoided the photobucket option since I don't post many images, and also because Dave Greer was always promoting it. He concerns me because some people have accused him of being a provocateur, and I always listen to some people. (Also, he sometimes likes to throw around mathematical equations, which I find intimidating.) But although I've opened up a photobucket account at your suggestion, for now I think if all my attachment space has to be used up for just one thing I can live with it being the Eppridge photos.
Thanks again,
Dan

My thanks again to Mike for the photobucket suggestion. Here's an extremely lightened panoramic view of the bottom half of the same image.