MONTEREY PARK, Calif. – The hardest part of being a photographer is being at the right place at the right time, but even when you are in the middle of it, it’s hard to know when you are capturing history.

Photographer George Rodriguez has captured a lot of pop culture history from Janis Joplin to Michael Jackson.

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“I feel very fortunate, but I have a lot of moments like that,” said George Rodriguez. “When they’re happening, you don’t realize what’s going on. Like I shot Jim Morrison and Van Morrison performing together at the Whisky a Go Go and again, you don’t realize how historical that is.”

A Mexican-American growing up in South L.A., Rodriguez got into photography at Fremont High School when a friend of his told him it would be easy, but finding work was not. He landed a job managing the photo lab at Columbia and soon found himself taking photos of celebrities.

“I used to do a lot of these when I worked for Rona Barrett's Hollywood or Tiger Beat and they were a lot of work because you know you go from room to room with your umbrellas, your camera and strobe pack,” said Rodriguez as he looks over an old photoshoot of actor Jeff Conaway’s house.

But covering celebrities didn’t fulfill Rodriguez’s need to create work he would often see in Life Magazine so when the Chicano movement erupted in the late 60s, he would head to Downtown during his lunch break and capture images of the East Los Angeles Walkouts when thousands marched for better schools.

“So when the Chicano movements started happening, you know I had to be there as much as I could because that kind of atmosphere really lends itself to really good photographs,” said Rodriguez.

You can say he lived a double life, photographing civil rights movements by day and movie stars by night, but he is mostly grateful for covering the critical social justice revolutions in East Los Angeles and the Central Valley, including the United Farm Workers led by Cesar Chavez.

Director Pilar Tomkins Rivas oversees the Vincent Price Art Museum where “Double Vision,” an exhibit covering 40 years of Rodriguez’s work curated by Josh Kun, is currently on display.

“It’s very particular to the experience of Mexican-Americans, civil rights movement, to Chicano history and the story of East L.A. that we find so important and compelling to tell,” said Rivas as she looks over a photo of Ruben Salazar’s funeral, which had never been seen by the public.

But you wouldn’t know it hearing from Rodriguez.

“I never you know took myself real serious,” said Rodriguez. “You don’t think about it. When it’s happening, you just want to make a living. Not until it’s in a retrospective show like this do you realize that it was a lot of work and you were there for a lot of stuff.”

Now on view at the Vincent Price Art Museum, Rodriguez’s work and double life is ready for to be seen for the first time together.

For a chance to meet George Rodriguez, VPAM will host a Holiday Open House on December 14 from 2 to 4 p.m. In addition to DJs and a book sale, Rodriguez will be taking photos and signing his book, Double Vision.