In Memory of Bert Keppler

I am sad to report Bert Keppler died last week. He was a good friend of my parents from our North Highland Place, Croton, days. He was an influential man in the world of photography. His daughter was my sister's best friend for many of our younger years, when we lived in the woods. I think my sister has the best summery of the official obituaries.

I remember him in many ways.

From my child's perspective, he was an odd little, bald man who always had a smirk on his vertical face. He travelled the world with his gardener/cellist wife, Louise Keppler. They owned several foreign cars that were always in the shop and had a labyrinth house full of objects they'd collected. I want to say they had a stuffed Zebra standing in one of their rooms, but it might have been some other hoofed animal. They kept building rooms on to their house to better accommodate their possessions.

Bert helped me buy my first, beloved camera, a Minolta's SRL 100 in 1970; and he introduced us to the first Polaroid. I think I still have a photo he took of me in Silver Lake with that Polaroid. As I remember, the paper didn't always pull away cleaning from the developing image. But it was very exciting to be among the first to have this camera or to even know that it exists.

Bert almost killed us once. There were a lot of us crammed into his van, which had the engine in the back. (The shape of a VW bus, but I don't think it was a VW.) I was around 17 and was sitting on my mother's lap in the shot-gun seat. Bert was driving; my Dad and Louise were in the back seat, and I think several other people were in the vehicle. It was winter. Someone in the back was giving directions. Several people were giving directions. Bert couldn't make up his mind which way to go, left or right? So instead we went straight ahead, off the road and into a snow-covered grassy ditch at the intersection. Mom held on to me, scraping her hands on the dash board. Bert managed to keep the bus from turning over; but it was awfully close.