I was fascinated by the Channel 4 documentary, 'Bobby Kennedy: The Last Journey' about the photographs taken by Paul Fusco from a train carrying the body of Robert F Kennedy to his final resting place in Washington. The train travelled through miles of waiting people hoping to pay their respects and as the train passed, Fusco photographed the people with a 35mm camera using Kodachrome film. The images have the wonderful colour that you would expect and a little motion blur which also adds a point of focus and stillness to the faces of all those people. The photographs tell the story of that day but also of that time and it was inevitable then that the documentary film makers tracked down and interviewed some of the people waiting to see the train that day in June 1968. The book has been beautifully produced with really great scans of the original slides. If I can find a place where the documentary can be seen I'll post a link.
Fortunately we didn't need to buy 10 blow up dolls, just a choice of 2. We photographed 'it' in various positions around the hero of the piece and then Stefano Cherubini from Happyfinish in London put the images together for us. Lauren McCreery was the stylist who dressed the doll and confessed to being horrified by the fact that the uniforms were size 9-10!!! The final result is quite shocking but I'm glad to say the 48 sheet poster remained in place all over Munster without being banned! The art director was Nicole Sykes at Chemistry, Dublin.
