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    All pictures with permission from Bob Eckert (April 17th 2025) |
Telling a full story with one photograph only Bob Eckert – A photojournalist par excellence Not many photographers are able to tell a story in one shot only. When I browsed Bob Eckert's online collec on, I saw hundreds, if not a thousand of stories told in almost each photo. It caught me instantly to dive into many of the subfolders and see this outstanding collec on. Of course with my main interest into vintage Ford assembly shots, I came to this side in a search engine and checked out the various photographs of the assembly line. Each of them was more than that, it showed hard working people in the shots telling a story, of how our todays classics were really mounted together piece by piece. The photographs pull you into it, so that you can picture yourself, which things had to be done first and second, and what was the burden on the worker. Today we get that only, if we try to replace a part and believe me, I learned recently a lesson disassembling my 1968 Mustang front end in the wrong order. I broke one piece, found mul ple wrong screws and nuts from previous "restorations“ done in 1984 and 2012 and more things that seemed to be not original. That led me to research into the Ford assembly line books that are available today and was surprised to find this mass of details about every piece needed. They had rather not unified items that fit mul ple purposes, but for each and everything a different special nut, shim or screw. Replacement kits of today do not always mirror that and it started me thinking on the intellectual skills of assembly workers doing things right or one or the other easier way, if they found out the engineer had made an error in the description. Well, back to Bob Eckert. I recognized that his pictures fully serve that angle of understanding the „dirty part“ of that job, the atmosphere in his shots gives a bett er understanding of the situation. Indeed he tells the story in each photo of how the worker must have felt, and you can feel the responsibility the engineer must have felt doing an illustration and description for those people working on the line. |
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Another photo caught my eye while I was looking for
other Mustang shots in the online collection and I came across a 1971 Mustang in
a Chinese funeral parade in San Francisco. Again with one shot, Bob hit the nail on the head with a historical street scene of the chinese community celebrating their origins and interest in keeping their culture alive in another country while working hard and with all family efforts bound in to survive. We all know chinese workers are probably the most suffering sort of workers to finance their families life whereever they are. All for money to keep their relatives fed or come to some wealth. The pictures in his series of San Franciscos Chinese community streets explain the tough life of each individual and the co-living of old and young in a limited city sector. Of course today there are also others that live a different life here and worldwide, but history has recorded that they were one of the strongest and toughest, yet secluded community engaged to work hard for a common purpose - earn money to survive. Not always understood from the outside. These parades and festivals gave them some backbone structure and roots to build a self-satisfying community abroad. Take your time to browse through Bob Eckert's other photographs at www.bobeckertphotography.com to get a glimpse of his "eye“ for situations and scenerys to capture the atmosphere of the subject. Congratulations for his historical work. About Bob Eckert: In his own words: "At the time I was working for a number of national publications on a freelance basis and the resulting images have been published a number of times. When I photographed both Cadillac and the Ford assembly lines, both companies were not letting journalists in for the most part but made an exception for me, which I appreciated. The most recent usage of an image from the Ford assembly line was in the opening of the restored Michigan Central Station in Detroit, Michigan" Thank you, Bob. |
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