To be a photographer by Graham O’Connor

To Be a PHOTOGRAPHER
by Graham O’Connor

Graham first on left

I think that the germ of photographic desire infected me at an early age while on a tenting holiday at the beach with my family. Being number three on the waiting list for the family Box Brownie, live with film, I learned in theory more than in practice. The never to be forgotten object of fascination that ‘we’ wanted to photograph was a retired City ‘tram’ set up as a non mobile, mobile home.

As with all items of opportunity in my youth, my only real chance, was to learn by discussion. Not really ‘hands on’ experience but sometimes more potent. Perhaps if I had been able to gratify the photographic ‘itch’ with an immediate action, once scratched, the itch might have gone away. Indelibly, the lesson learned, was the great price paid at the corner chemist for photographic prints, particularly if the same anonymous tramcar home is photographed by three budding cameramen on the same day.

The next infectious contact was a solo effort some years later on holiday in the capital of the next state, the sole purpose of which was to record the shy charms of a first girlfriend a with ‘baby brownie’ purchased for that end. On coming home to ‘the little smoke’, a changed man, complete with camera and views of my recent surroundings, and the maid, imagine the dilemma facing me in my efforts to obtain a second set of print, to send to my new found friend. In the light of my tram phobia, how could I, a recent travel bankrupt get these prints?

Outside our tent at Kingston Park, with Graham on the left.

Simplicity itself, if you have my in-built talent. Sell the NEED to have the capacity to print photographs to your older brothers!

No worries.

A very entertaining visit to Kodak and the purchase of a ‘Velox contact printing set’ and the rededication of the bathroom to ‘Darkroom’, and you are in business, didn’t cost me a penny. One 127 contact printing frame, a set of paper masks, a packet of Velox contact paper, three ‘bakelite’ dishes, chemicals, a useless safe-lamp, Dad’s reading lamp and off we go! Three packets of photo printing paper later, a full set of prints for posting for only ten times what the Chemist would have charged and we were Photographers. Mind you I had not managed to DO anything yet, but I knew all about it.

Suddenly, the box brownie and baby brownie were not good enough and Big Brother #1 bought a second hand ‘Puma Special’ camera. It used the same useless 127 roll film, but had THREE shutter speeds, obtained by the simple act of tilting the camera to left or to right. The horizontal position giving the intermediate speed, the high speed being a 150th second, and the square format making it not matter a hoot which way you held it composition wise.

Somewhere along the way, came the day when we attempted to develop the first roll of film. Three sweaty little boys in a reformed bathroom, developing a film in a dish, over the sink, in what we hopefully called total darkness. Some how between stop-bath and fix, the film ended up in the ‘S’ bend of the sink. The only way to apply the ‘stopbath’ and Hypo was to pour it down the sink after the film. The film had to be retrieved with a spanner. Slightly over developed/scratched but withal, the work of master photographers.

End of a sub-era, the interest of the older brothers waned. Not so this one. Now I had it all to myself, to labour on in semi-ignorance, turning out fair snapshots, and turning my attention to horse photographs. Because of my affinity with horses and attendance at shows and Gymkhanas, found the opportunity to take photos of the competing horses at these events.

This all coincided with a change of address out of which I gained tenancy of the cellar as a darkroom, enjoying true ‘total darkness’ at last. I was able to run off ‘contact prints’ of the horse photos and take them to the next show, find the owner of the horse and sell the prints for a small sum. All of this success attracted the attention of eldest brother again, who decided to have part of the action, perhaps the part where shy young maidens stood still in front of you for 100th part of a second at f11 got him in. So WE went ahead in leaps and bounds, with his purchase of a Goetz 1/4 plate folding camera in a second hand shop. This allowed us the facility to take just one exposure and develop it at once, learning the lesson of what occurs each time you press the button.

Our first attempts were on glass plates but we soon switched to cut film. My brother, with his great Mechanical ability soon had that camera doubling as the focusing mechanism of a home made enlarger, which I used for many years. Eldest brother went from strength to strength, taking over the whole operation, having had printed, hundreds of business cards and photo mounts, embossed in embarrassingly large gold letters, with our Christian names, his first of course. He then took an embarrassing compulsory portrait of everyone we knew. My therapeutic retirement from photography as practiced, took place quietly and at once.

Onto the scene, came a young man in his mid twenties, a family friend associated with the Sunday school. Proud owner of a mythical Rolleicord model 3 (and endless patience). Took the ‘official’ photographs of the Sunday school picnic. All of them beautifully composed, exposed, and most of all, enlarged! A whole new world. What a year, what a privilege to be taken under the wing of one such, and to be given the discerning guidance, hands on practice, and equipment access. The quote of the century on camera purchase. ‘Assess the amount that you can afford, double it, and use that as a down payment’.

After a brief loan of his second camera, I was somehow able to purchase a ‘Reflekta II’ twin lens reflex camera, for 120 film, together with an adjustable developing tank. All of this out of the profits gleaned from that small clientele amongst horse and pony owners who were happy to buy pictures of their horses that I took at Horse Shows and Gymkhanas.

Always fortunate, I was then obtained Saturday morning work as a camera salesman in the leading city camera shop under the care of the top photographic salesman of the time. In this situation, and still in high school, I could fondle every type of camera, tripod and accessory to my heart’s content. To aid me in my selling, I took photos with as many types of cameras as I could and retained samples at the counter, of pictures that demonstrated the unique abilities of each model camera that I had investigated.

A technique that I developed for myself, to further aid my selling, took place after a brief assessment of the magnitude of photographic desire in each customer. Guided by the stated ambitions, I went immediately, with brief explanation of what I was doing to both the top camera in the range, and the cheapest camera which I felt could manage to do the job. Taking care to explain the key features and giving a brief photography lesson based on the actual camera functions, I was able to close sales involving a realistic matching of camera, price and desire. Looking back, I cannot believe that so many would listen in this way to one so young.

In this capacity, I waited on and was befriended by a one particular customer, a leading commercial and industrial Photographer who was an almost weekly purchaser in the shop. I found that I could attend to his needs and simultaneously continue to sell a camera to another client at the counter, without offending him or the prospective camera purchaser. Because he had instant replay on anything to do with photography, I would call on him to answer a technical question posed by the other customer, and leave them talking while I assembled his chemical or material order from a list which he would conveniently leave on the counter. Mostly with the good information supplied by the photographer, the client would purchase the camera in question. Usually this was a camera of much greater expense than the one first considered. When accurate assessment was made of the client’s real needs only the better camera would do.

The upshot of all this was that I was invited to visit the professional photographer at his studio and workrooms. If perhaps I had thought that I knew it all, I knew nothing. A whole new world of organization, co-operation, sparkling cleanliness and professionalism was before me. As He and wife and son, lived on the premises, I was able to ride my bike to the studio each Saturday for lunch and then help in the darkroom, finishing room and studio in the afternoon. On subsequent days came exciting times of carrying his tripod or camera bag and learning how to set up his 5’x 4′ Linhof technical camera on its tripod, for various commercial jobs. The swings and tilts for perspective control, were all grist to my mill and soon I was able to set up in such a way that he took me along to assist with jobs at exhibitions, pulling two identical camera rigs on hand carts. As he was the leading ‘exhibition photographer’ he usually got the job of photographing every corporate display in the gigantic hall.

We would each set up on different subjects. He would set up and shoot his and I would set up and wait for him to come and shoot. I would then go to his set-up and pull the gear down and pack it onto a cart, moving to the next site on my list and set up and wait. Each time he would come and explain modifications he thought necessary to make to my set-up achieve the desired result. His constant comment was that he had to change my setups less and less.

Just one of the many tricks of the trade that I learnt and put to good use was to modify the amount of light coming from ugly roof areas in the exhibition hall photos by simply waving the dark slide sheath plate in front of the camera lens in the top 1/4 of the field of view. Basic but effective.

Another job that I helped with on one occasion was to assist in photography of an entire range of coffins for a funeral director. His simple method of ‘deep etching’ the background, was by cutting through black masking tape with a scalpel on the 5×4 negs. In those days, ‘Super XX’, the first of the fast panchromatic roll films had come on to the market, and one of his great skills was to develop up to 20 rolls of 120 film in a tray by hand, the agitation being achieved by un-winding the coil of film in one sweep of the arm and rewinding it again in the space of two or three seconds per film. In the last half minute of development he would inspect one frame of each film, under a weak green safelight and when ready, throw it into the stop bath until all were in and then transfer them to the fix. Although I stood there with him on many occasions, while he did this, believe me, I never gained that skill.

About this time I bought a Rolleicord Mod IV, of which I was justly proud and later an Ultrablitz electronic flash unit. I was sent out to do my first professional assignment. This was the ‘Mopar Marathon’, a ‘soap box derby’ run by the Dodge Motor Company down a famous hill on the
North side of the City. I very nervously, but proudly spent a glorious afternoon shooting my heart out on the races and presentation that followed. Although all of my shots were overexposed slightly, they printed reasonably and this was one of many jobs successfully completed for this busy photographer. Added to my skills, was the handling of 5×4 press cameras, using range finders and both PF 60 flash bulbs and electronic flash; hand held and in a hurry. I then started to attend weddings as an assistant and arranger, and did back up shots of the guests, while seeing how a real professional worked. On occasion I was sent to do celebrity photo assignments in the city.

Quite by chance I gave myself an accidental object lesson in lighting. I was walking from my flat to a bus stop to go to the city in the early afternoon and came to the bus stop which was outside an old ‘Pub’. On the side of the building was a large mirror advertising some beer or other. The building faced North and the sun was high in the sky over my right shoulder. I walked up to the mirror and pulled out my comb to tidy my hair. As I approached the mirror with the sun behind me, the reflected light bathed my face. There in perfect balance was what I ever after perceived as the lighting of ‘flash fill’ The overhead sun ‘highlighted’ my hair and shoulder and the reflected ‘fill’ lit my face and the geometry of the shadow of my nose was in classic position.

In subsequent photographs I sought to arrange my wedding groups and portraits in such a manner that this same lighting could be achieved. In the same way I observed that when in ordinary situations a person sitting opposite me in a restaurant, would on occasion be lit in a perfect manner. I would analyse the source of the light and try to emulate it in subsequent portraits in the future.

So my technique grew.

My professional photographer friend, introduced me to his brother, also a noted photographer, but a wedding and portrait specialist, having both a city studio and a photographic wedding service offering cheaper prices for it’s work by using 35mm cameras only. In those days, The City had the phenomenon known as the speculation or ‘spec’ photographer. As all weddings were proudly announced in the appropriate columns of the weekend newspapers, and engagements were treated the same way, it was common knowledge who was marrying whom, and when. The major wedding studios as distinct from the ‘photo services’, besieged the intendeds with letters offering ‘photographs of taste and distinction’ on the soon to be here day.

The successful studio, would send the ‘Booked photographer’ along and it was accepted that he had certain privileges about the shots that he could take and heaven help the ‘spec’. man who poached on those shots. I have attended weddings where up to 20 ‘spec’ men have attended. While the official photographer and wedding party were in the church. they would lounge about in the street or grounds and skite about jobs that they have done. When the guests would leave the church they would hasten to take photographs and hand out cards to identify the shots for later purchase in city arcade stalls.

I found that I was able to emulate the shots of the ‘pros’ and improve the quality of my shot. On one memorable day I was told at the studio that the ‘Booked man’s’ camera had failed for the car shots and that he had approached the studio for use of the photographs that I had taken literally over his shoulder, at a considerable premium on the usual price. As I was on commission, this was a feather in my cap and cash in my pocket.

After considerable experience being a ‘spec’ photographer, along with attending party bookings that the firm made each weekend, I eventually became one of the ‘booked men’. I carried on with this work for a number of years. In later years I had the honour of learning studio portraiture and weddings from other well known artists. The attention to detail needed to naturally pose a large wedding party to tell the story of the wedding without looking ‘posed’ is and art.

I was able to expand my attentions into other areas of photography in later years including ‘photo lithography’ and ‘ photographic colour printing’. I have had several attempts to run my own photographic business but never have been able to get the capital together to equip in a professional manner. People who take money for photographing other people’s weddings always must have a spare rig available in case of failure of any item as a wedding is a NOW thing and there is no second chance. The life of a ‘wedding photographer, is full of near things where a shot has been missed but a quick wit allows a second bite of the apple without people knowing that the first shot was missed.

Photography is now in the area of ‘digital’ cameras and computer enhancement of photos. Most of the major brands of cameras make a ‘digital back’ that can handle film when required or digital. The resolution and colour fidelity of this equipment is breathtaking.

When I think back to my Baby Brownie and before that, mum’s Box Brownie!

Where have we come from – where are we going?