| From Photoworkshop.com Cover Archives  CLICK HERE TO VIEW A GALLERY OF EDDIE ADAMS' IMAGESAll images © Eddie Adams
Adams started his photographic career at the local newspaper before moving on to larger newspapers and magazines. He joined the Marines at a young age and was assigned to Korea. Later, he worked for Associated Press and went to Vietnam as a photographer. “He was a Marine through and through until the day he died,” Cindy says. “He took that very seriously.” Every year at the workshop, a memorial service is held in which Adams has always honored five dear friends, all photographers who covered Vietnam, and who died in the war. “It was always a very emotional thing for Eddie and a very important part of the workshop,” she says. Haunted by Vietnam Cindy gives an example of how Eddie Adams always stayed true to his word, having been a Marine. One of the attendees at the most recent Eddie Adams Workshop was a woman named Tana who was an officer in the Air Force and had known Adams for years. She also teaches photography. “Tana asked Eddie years ago to go to her graduation,” Cindy relates. He agreed to do it, and a big turnout was anticipated because Adams was going to speak. However, she wasn’t allowed to pick him up from the airport; she was required to have a high-ranking officer do the honors. Nonetheless, Adams wanted her to be there. So a lieutenant accompanied her, and when Adams got in the car, he shouted at her, “You *#*! owe me,” much to her embarrassment. She asked, “Okay, what did I do,” and he responded, “I’ve been waiting for months to get this interview with Nelson Mandela, and they finally said, ‘okay, you can do it,’ but I told them I couldn’t because I’m speaking at this graduation!”
Effecting Change By contrast, Adams loved the “Boat People” from Vietnam who attempted to come to America in 1977 and was very proud that he could help them. He got aboard one of the boats and took a series of images. The photos presented to Congress helped with the decision to allow Vietnamese refugees into the U.S. Cindy says, “It’s an example of how photos can make a difference.” Adams was also fond of photographing children. One incident that they unfortunately couldn’t fit into the documentary occurred when he took pictures of a child who had cancer. His image of a little girl holding a blanket who had lost her hair from chemotherapy was on the cover of Parade magazine. Karen Loucks, a woman from Colorado, was so moved by this photograph that she started Project Linus, a nonprofit organization (named after the “Peanuts” character), and began making blankets to donate to children with cancer. She even had the opportunity to meet Adams on the Oprah Winfrey show and tell him in person how much his picture inspired her. “She and Eddie became very good friends,” says Cindy. “She came up to the workshop every year and they stayed in touch until the day he died.”
Although Adams was best known for his photojournalism, he photographed a wide variety of subjects. He struck up a friendship with magazine publisher Bob Guccione and took pictures for Penthouse for a brief time. Cindy describes Adams’ stint with Penthouse as “short lived,” and something he did for fun. Adams shot for the AP for a number of years and later took pictures for magazines. He also photographed movie posters, annual reports, and other corporate work. And after some initial resistance, he signed a contract with Parade magazine. “He told Walter Anderson (the editor and CEO of Parade), ‘I don’t want to do this, but I’ll take a meeting.’ But Parade gave him a lot of freedom,” says Cindy. “He could decide how he wanted to photograph somebody, like Ronald Reagan lifting weights in his tee-shirt, or Arnold Schwarzenegger with a rubber ducky.” Adams also had the opportunity to travel around the world and photograph diplomats, presidents, world leaders, and celebrities, such as Clint Eastwood, Louis Armstrong, Mother Teresa and Pope John Paul. This publication (which appears in hundreds of Sunday editions of newspapers) has perhaps the highest circulation of any magazine in the U.S. Alyssa Adams is currently working on a book of Eddie’s images from Vietnam. Entitled Eddie Adams: Vietnam, this book will be published by Umbrage, and will be available in early 2009. It will feature many of his powerful images from the war. During his lifetime, Eddie never took the time to publish a book, because he wanted to look forward, not backward. The Eddie Adams Workshops In 1983 or ’84, Alyssa worked for a graphic design firm called Carbone Smolan & Associates. “Leslie Smolan is the sister of Rick Smolan, who started the Day in a Life books with David Cohen,” Alyssa explains. The firm was designing the book series. “I met Eddie at a birthday party for David, because he was a photographer on their project,” she says. At this point, Adams was shooting for Parade, which was doing more human-interest stories at the time. Alyssa currently works as Deputy Photo Editor for T.V. Guide, and is the Executive Director of the Barnstorming Workshops. Her background is in communication arts, and she has an interest in photography, although she’s not a photographer. “Eddie and I started the workshops together, as well as the Bathhouse Studio (his photo studio in New York). How did the workshops begin? “Eddie bought property in upstate New York in 1976,” she says. “There was a farmhouse and a dilapidated dairy barn. He always had thoughts of having a photo farm.” His friends who were photographers would help with the renovation of the barn during the day and they would show their slides in the evening. “One day we were walking down the street,” she says, “and I said, ‘wouldn’t it be great to put on some workshops based solely on merit, rather than how much one could pay to get in.”
Today, she operates the workshops with a board of directors and the workshop producer, Mirjam Evers. “It only takes place once a year, but it takes us all year to put it together.” The number of applicants varies from year to year, but approximately 1000 to 2000 hopeful photographers apply in February for the four-day long workshop, which is held over the Columbus Day weekend in October. After reviewing the applicants’ work and selecting the very best in June, 100 photographers are selected to come to the farm in Jeffersonville, New York, where the Workshop makes its home. Nikon is the major sponsor. “The sponsors and the faculty who donate their time are the ones who make it happen.” The people who lead these workshops are some of the most influential photographers and photo editors, representing publications and agencies such as the AP, Getty, The New York Times, National Geographic, Parade, Sports Illustrated, Newsweek, The Los Angeles Times, and Noor, among others. “We’ve had a lot of great people up there. Peter Jennings was there one year, and Kim Phuc (the young Vietnamese girl in the image who was running from napalm, photographed by Nick Ut).” Bill Eppridge, Joe Rosenthal, Carl Mydans, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Cornell Capa, James Nachtwey, Mary Ellen Mark, Eugene Richards and Gordon Parks have also been among the talent who have appeared at the workshops. “There was never a dull moment when Eddie was around,” says Cindy fondly, adding that he wasn’t always the easiest person to get along with. “But he was a big influence on my life. I didn’t realize the strength of his work and what a rich archive he had until I got older.” She says that she learned a lot during the time the documentary was made. “It would be great if they could show the documentary every year to the students at the workshop, because they could say, ‘this is who Eddie was.’”
Throughout portions of “An Unlikely Weapon,” Eddie himself appears in brief episodes that Cindy originally filmed. “I saw Eddie quite frequently because he was coming to L.A. once a month.” She was the one who had the idea of doing a documentary of his life and work. As co-producer of the film, Cindy interviewed him, traveled with him, “and followed him around with a camera.” She wound up with hours of footage after a while, but didn’t know where to go from there. Then the owner of an Italian restaurant where Cindy dined introduced her to filmmaker Susan Morgan Cooper. “We met, she loved the idea, and wanted to come on board as the co-producer and director,” says Cindy. “I wanted to do this documentary because I’ve always had a fascination with photographers who lay down their lives to bring back a story,” Susan explains. (Coincidentally, Susan made a short movie about 12 years ago called “Stringers” about a photographer in Vietnam, and had even used some photos taken by Adams for this film.) Ultimately, it was Adams’ decision as to whether Susan would do the documentary. So she flew to New York, and they spent an afternoon together. “They had a really great time,” says Cindy. “They drank Coronas, and he showed her a brief documentary of images he had taken of a 10-year-old boy who had Progeria (a rapidly deteriorating children’s disease).” Susan says, “He set this documentary to the Dolly Parton song, ‘I will Always Love You.’ We sat on the sofa and sobbed, and it was the most incredibly bonding moment. Then I asked him if he wanted me to make this documentary about him, and he said yes. He gave me his seal of approval.” Unfortunately, Susan only met Eddie on that single occasion. Susan has done a number of documentary films, including one that focused on a girl named Marianna from Croatia whose mother had died during the Balkan war. She moved to California and had great difficulty assimilating to her new surroundings. When Susan met her, she was very overweight and suicidal. “This started my documentary career,” she says. Happily, Marianna was greatly helped by this film, and has gotten a college degree and is planning to get married. “This is one thing I think I share with Eddie Adams; I have a fascination with people who are displaced and downtrodden,” Susan says. She will also be working on a film about a policeman from East Los Angeles who took kids out of gangs and turned them into a championship Roller Hockey team, entitled “Roadrunners.” Cindy is also a veteran of the film industry. She was Associate Producer of a well-received documentary called “Blues by the Beach,” about a suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, and has been an actress for about 20 years, with roles in movies, television and commercials. Over the four years of production on “An Unlikely Weapon,” Susan interviewed people like Peter Jennings (“my hero”), Tom Brokaw, Douglas Kirkland, and Bill Eppridge. “Every single photographer that I interviewed, I fell in love with for a time,” she says, “because there’s a certain quality about this type of photographer who’s been through a great deal.” She adds, “I chose Bill Eppridge to be Eddie’s voice when Eddie wasn’t there because he has such a wonderful authenticity to him. He’s such a great storyteller.”
She started out with Hal Buell and an Associated Press interview he had previously given her. Susan says that she interviews many people and selects the best parts for her films. “For me, making a documentary is like panning for gold…and I string these pieces of gold together.” She found some good things in the interview, but felt she needed so much more. “Each night before I went to sleep, I would call up to the heavens and said, ‘Eddie, you’ve got to help me out here. I need to find your voice.” One day, she found a box containing a tape without a label and almost discarded it. But instead, she put in her camera and discovered that there was some footage of Eddie walking in New York, which was the answer to her prayers. “I labeled that tape, ‘Eddie from God,’” she says. Susan’s film editor and cinematographer, Issac Hagy, shot film of New York to expand on the footage she had found. “It started to give me the voice I wanted.” Susan and Isaac did a lot of research for the film, and she interviewed many people at the Barnstorming Workshops. Then she cold-called people like Tom Brokaw and Bob Schiffer, who didn’t hesitate to help out with the project. “They didn’t know me from Adam, but to me, this spoke volumes about the respect they had for Eddie,” she says. In addition to these interviews, Kiefer Sutherland did the narration and Kyle Eastwood (Clint Eastwood’s son) did the musical score. At the Todd AO studios in Santa Monica, Sound Director Mark Stockenger and the sound technicians watched the film and praised her highly. “These people are hard-working artists themselves, who sometimes get little recognition,” she says, “And like Eddie Adams, they often believe that their work is no good. I think it really hit home to them that he was an artist who had done an incredible body of work, and yet at times, he felt—as they do—that his work didn’t amount to a hill of beans.” When they first screened the film, people told Susan they were very moved by it. She thought she had created a documentary that would appeal primarily to photographers, “but I found that we had made a documentary that resonated with people from 18 to 80, men and women alike, and it was really about making a difference.”
At 1:00 in the morning recently, Susan discovered her 17-year-old daughter, Alexandra, studying Eddie Adams’ images on her computer. When she queried the teenager about the late hour, she replied, “Mom, I do this every night.” Susan says that after being inspired by his work, Alexandra wants to study photography. “I can’t explain what an inspiration this man has been,” Susan states. “I lived with him for four years with his image on my monitor.” To order a DVD of the documentary, go to www.anunlikelyweapon.com. To learn more about the Eddie Adams Workshops, visit www.barnstormworkshop.com. See Robert Farber's interview with Eddie Adams at www.photoworkshop.com/static/workshop/interviews/eddie_adams/interview And an audio interview at http://www.photoworkshop.com/rooms3d/media_library CLICK HERE TO VIEW A GALLERY OF EDDIE ADAM'S IMAGES© Copyright 2002 by Photoworkshop.com |
