Schapiro followed Robert Kennedy on his 1968 presidential campaign, and was able to get to know the politician beyond the soundbite, something he believes contributes to the quality of photojournalism in that period. “It was an incredible time to be a photojournalist because there was more of an emotional flow – an ability to do more emotional pictures that captured the spirit of a person,” [he told Time magazine](http://time.com/3793652/steve-schapiro-then-and-now-rare-images-from-a-photography-legend/#1l). “I was able to spend a lot of time with people – Bobby Kennedy went to South America for four weeks and I got to go with him. When I got really sick there, Ethel Kennedy brought me Bobby’s pajamas to wear. Bobby was someone who I became friends with, but everyone who worked with him loved him.” Schapiro is grateful to have been close to people like Kennedy. “I felt he was the consummate political figure, in the sense that he had the intelligence and sense of caring, and he also knew how to play politics,” he tells BBC Culture, recalling a talk Kennedy gave at Berkeley. “There were certain points he wanted to make, but the press picked up on something else – a little incident or something in the way he was talking. He really wanted to get his points across to the American public, so he invited the entire press corps to his hotel room afterwards – and while they were in the living room drinking, he and his staff were in the bedroom calling their editors (above their heads) to make sure they got back on course.” He sees Kennedy’s assassination as pivotal. “To combine all of those three elements, I think he would have changed America at that point, in a substantial and important way – and that did not happen.”