How I got into Photography in 1956: No digital, no internet, just people!
A geeky kid with a passion for pictures earns his chops the hard way!
By Jason Schneider
Ever since I was a toddler, I’ve been fascinated with little machines that work, like mechanical watches, wind-up toys, and fancy cap pistols with revolving cylinders. However, what piqued my lifelong passion for photography were a few seemingly random events that turned out to have had a profound influence on my life.
When turned 8 years old in 1950, my Aunt Estelle (my mom’s kid sister) gave me an Ansco Panda box camera as a birthday present. Attractively styled like a twin-lens reflex with a large reflex viewfinder on top, this all-plastic, fixed focus, single shutter speed contraption (made in Binghamton, NY from 1939 to 1950) took twelve 2-1/4 x 2-1/4-in images per roll of 620 film and had a red window on the back to enable manually advancing the film to the next frame. Unfortunately, the lens (at least the one on my Panda) was simply awful and the resulting prints didn’t even rise the level of mediocrity despite my best efforts. After running 2 rolls of film through this wretched thing with disastrous results, my dad took pity on me and let me use the “family camera,” a Kodak Brownie Six-20 box camera of the late ‘30s, which took eight 2-1/4 x 3-1/4 inch images per roll, provided Instantaneous and time exposure settings, and even had two lever-set distance settings (5 to 10 feet, and beyond 10 feet) at the bottom of its spiffy art deco front plate. Despite its modest specs the Brownie performed remarkably well—far better than the Ansco Panda, and I ran dozens of rolls of Kodak Verichrome Pan 620 film through it, and had it processed and contact printed at (where else?) the local drug store in Manhattan, that had its own modest on-site black-and-white lab in the back!
My first camera, the plastic Ansco Panda, looks cool, but its lens was pretty bad. My did took pity on mr and let use the family Brownie Six-20.
Printing without a lab? All you need is “POP”
At age 10 I had a different kind of encounter with photography, also as the result of a gift, this time from my uncle Lennie, my dad’s kid brother, who presented me with a “no processing required” printing kit that was marketed as a fun science project for kids. The kit included 20 sheets of light sensitive “printing out paper” aka POP, and a frame for holding an existing negative in contact with the paper, which was then exposed to sunlight until a brownish-toned print miraculously appeared. Eventually these POP prints will fade unless you fix them by applying a fixing solution that was thoughtfully included in the kit, a process familiar to anyone who’s shot with an original Polaroid 95 in the late ‘40s. After making all 20 prints, mostly of long-lost relatives smiling stiffly and nostalgic scenes taken the in the “old countries” of Belarus, Poland, and Bessarabia, I discarded the kit. But the emotional impact it made on me and my family was permanent. For the first time I felt the visceral power of photography in preserving memories, and I’m sure that this fleeting experience at age 10 was part of the reason I eventually took up darkroom work as a teenager and eventually became a competent (though far from superlative) black-and-white printer.
My first “real” camera: an East German roll film folder with a so-so lens
By the time I morphed into a gangly adolescent of 14 in 1956, my interest in photography was becoming an obsession. I avidly devoured the Photography Annuals published by Popular Photography, which not only showcased memorable images, but also included tech data on the cameras and lenses used to shoot them. I was enthralled with the compelling pictures in each issue of Life Magazine and fantasized about becoming a renowned photojournalist. I avidly digested the latest issues of Modern Photography and Popular Photography at the local library and occasionally bought individual copies on the newsstand when they contained articles on lighting, composition, darkroom techniques, test reports on cameras and lenses, bios of great photographers, etc. I generally preferred Modern for its “straight from the shoulder” writing style “pull no punches” test reports, and exhaustive technical articles on optics, shutters, exposure metering systems, focusing methods and the like by Bennett Sherman, who had a PhD in Physics. However, Pop Photo also had its charms with such great writers as Norman Rothschild, a font of practical hands-on info delivered with breathless enthusiasm, and Bob Schwalberg, a tech genius and Leica guru whose brilliant insights were often tinged with his signature sarcasm. In the ‘50s, Pop Photo also published illustrated articles with first person commentary by such iconic masters as Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Edward Steichen, and Henri Cartier-Bresson.
I never joined a photography club in my youth, but I did have a couple of nerdy teenage buddies who were also emerging photo enthusiasts. We used to get together and jaw about such esoteric topics as Leica vs. Nikon lenses (neither of which we could afford), whether Kodak D-76 worked better as a one-shot developer or with replenishment, and which 400-speed black-and-white film had the least objectionable grain. But I was still shooting with a Kodak 620 box camera, and my friend Mike had a shiny new Minolta A-2 rangefinder 35 with a 5-element, 45mm f/2.8 Rokkor lens and shutter speeds to 1/400 sec! As a part-time counterman at the local diner, I couldn’t afford anything to equal Mike’s magnificent Minolta (a gift from his disciplinarian dad) but I was determined to get myself a “real camera” with f/stops, shutter speeds, and a focusing lens.
So, I forked over 15 cents to take the subway up from West 4th St in Greenwich Village to Union Square Station at 14th Street and trotted over to “S. Klein on the Square,” a flourishing enterprise established in 1906 that billed itself as a discount department store. It was there that I found my first “serious” camera at a price I could afford—an East German Belfoca folding roll film camera that took eight 2-1/4 x 3-1/4-inch frames per roll of 120 film or (with included mask inserted) twelve 2-1-/4 x 2-1/4-inch images per roll. It was kind if clunky even back then, but it was priced at $12.50 plus 3% New York City sales tax. Mine had a flip-up non-optical frame finder plus a small reflex finder atop the front standard that swung to vertical or horizontal viewing position, two red windows with sliding covers on the back to accommodate both formats, and a front-cell-focusing 105mm f/4.5 Meritar lens in a Prontor-S shutter on the front. The lens, a middling triplet, wasn’t very sharp wide open, but it was OK by f/5.6 and quite good at f/8 and smaller apertures. The shutter was reliable and accurate and even had a built-in self-timer that I used to take a few scary self-portraits (now thankfully misplaced). My main gripe with the Belfoca: the minimum focusing distance of the lens was 5 feet, not close enough for a full-frame head-and shoulders portrait. I could do a bit better by inserting the mask and shooting in 2-1.4 x 2-1/4 format where the lens was, in effect, a moderate telephoto, but I couldn’t compete with my pal’s Minolta, which focused down to 2.7 feet. Indeed, I couldn’t surpass him until 1958, when I acquired my second camera, a 9 x 12 cm Voigtlander Avus film pack and sheet film camera that I used with a Rada 6 x 9 cm 120 roll film adapter. It had a superb 13.5 cm f/4.5 Skopar lens (a Tessar-type) that could focus down to the macro range!
Belfoca camera by Optik Belca Kamerawerk, Dresden, VEB Kamerawerk Niedersedlitz, Germany (DDR). Mine also had a small reflex finder missing here.
Back view of Belfoca camera showing 2 red windows with sliding cover to accommodate both 6 x 9 cm and 6 x 6 cm formats on 120 roll film.
Learning about photography in the “Pre-Information Age?” Not so easy.
Ultimately, learning photography is like learning to drive a car—to attain true mastery you must acquire hands-on experience. However, to configure that hands-on experience efficiently you need good information. And acquiring that information is substantially easier and quicker today than it was back in ‘56 when Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” topped the Billboard 100. Thanks to the internet you can now instantly access and print out information on virtually any topic or go straight to the source if you need a printed copy. When I was a lad, we bought carefully selected books and visited the reading room of the library. I was fortunate indeed to live in lower Manhattan, only a few stops on the subway from the Main Branch of the New York City Public Library on Fifth Avenue at 42nd St. The main entrance of this imposing beaux arts structure adjacent to Bryant Park is flanked by two magnificent stone lions that somehow ennobled my relentless quest for photographic knowledge. Incidentally, while you were allowed to take notes (which I always did), back in the day you couldn’t photocopy any copyrighted material, though I did manage to sneak in a few photos of text pages with my friend Charlie’s cantankerous Exakta VX!
Front facade of the main branch of the NYC Public Library at 42nd St and Fifth Avenue. Note: only one of the 2 stone lions is visible. Photo by Ajay Suresh
While I don’t have a complete list of the dozens of books, booklets, and pamphlets I acquired in pursuing what amounted to an informal self-structured, course on photography, here are a few that stand out:
Photographic Optics by Arthur Cox, published by Focal Press, is a classic in the field, an authoritative and comprehensive volume with sections on basic optical concepts, the ideal lens, the optical defects in every lens, picture quality, etc. Written in a lucid style it explains many complex concepts in simple language, but parts of it can still be challenging to those (like me) who have never taken a course in optics.
History of the Photographic Lens by Rudolf Kingslake, published by Elsevier Science Publishing Company, Inc. Charming, accessible, and trustworthy, just like its author, longtime chief optical designer at Kodak and one of the top camera lens designers of the 20th century.
Lootens on Photographic Enlarging & Print Quality, by J. Ghislain Lootens, published by American Book Publishing Co. An illustrated compendium of practical hands-on information that includes invaluable information on vintage processes that is often unavailable elsewhere.
Kodak has published literally hundreds of books on a staggering variety of photographic subjects from the late 19th century to the present. Here are a handful that I found useful when studying photography on my own. Note: Not all these books were up to date, but they were unfailingly concise, well written, and easy to understand, all of which helped me build my knowledge base.
Color as seen and photographed, Eastman Kodak Co. (1951)
Elementary photographic chemistry, Eastman Kodak Co. (1941)
The fundamentals of photography, Eastman Kodak Co. (1938)
How to make good pictures; for the every-day photographer, E.K. 1936)
Negative making for professional photographers, E.K. Co. (1952)
Photography’s role in the culture of America, Eastman Kodak Co. (1953)
The Camera Store Connection: Retailers were my greatest teachers!
Yes, there are still dozens of small-to-medium-sized retailers in the U.S. that qualify as traditional “old-time camera stores” much like the ones I frequented back in the mid-1950s. However, they’re clearly an endangered species, and scores of them have shut their doors over the past two decades. Today, purchasing camera gear (especially new stuff) is mostly done online, and large stores that can offer the lowest prices and free or low-cost shipping dominate the market. If you take the time to make an in-person visit to one of the giant retailers such as B&H Photo Video or Adorama (both in NY City) Ace Photo in Ashburn VA, or Samy’s Camera, with branches on the West Coast, you may get the chance to talk over the counter with one of their incredibly knowledgeable sales people who will not only guide you to the right camera but can also sell it to you in any one of 7 different languages! Impressive indeed, but still not the same as the personal touch you can get from a hometown retailer who knows you personally, understands your present level of expertise, and can guide you along the pathway of enhancing your knowledge base, elevating your picture-taking experience, and optimizing your creative output.
New York’s “Camera District”
The nexus of my camera buying, information-seeking quest as a budding photo enthusiast back in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s was Manhattan’s de-facto “camera district,” a cluster of large and medium-sized camera stores located around 32nd St, between 6th and 7thAvenues. The stores on 32nd street included Willoughby’s, then the largest photo retailer in New York City (founded in 1898 and still operating on 36th St. under new management) Minifilm, and Fotoshop, smack in the middle of the block on the north side of the street. I also bought a lot of stuff and acquired a lot of knowledge at nearby Olden Camera and Lens Company at 890 6th Avenue near 33rd St. and became friends with Bobby Olden, the son of the founder, who hooked me up with their most knowledgeable salesmen.
Willoughby's camera store on W. 32nd in NYC. View looking west from 6th Avenue.
Willoughby's on W. 32nd St in Nrw York, night view in color.
Olden Camera back in the day, From STORE FRONT NYC by James & Karla Murray
Fotoshop (sorry no photo) was the home of my photographic guru, the late great Charlie Pelish, who taught me more about cameras, lenses, developing tanks, darkroom equipment, enlargers, etc. than I could possibly have learned by taking a college course in photography. I doubt that Charlie was an avid photographer himself (frankly, I never asked him), but he was certainly enthusiastic about photography and had an encyclopedic knowledge of vintage and modern photo equipment acquired in more than 40 years behind the counter. I also patronized Spiratone, a small photo store then located at 49 W. 27th St in Manhattan, which eventually moved to Northern Boulevard in Flushing, Queens, and became the largest supplier of photographic accessories in the U.S. Fortuitously I was able to make friends with its gracious and deliberate founder, the late great Fred Spira, a leading collector of cameras, images and photographic literature. Fred taught me much about all aspects of photography and incentivized my interest in camera collecting, which eventually resulted in my pitching The Camera Collector column to Modern Photography, and joining the staff shortly afterward as Assistant Editor in October 1969. That was the start of what turned out to be my 35-year career in photographic publishing.
November 1956 cover of Modern Photograpjy. I joined the staff 13 tears later!
July 1956 cover of Popular Photography showcased compelling images, a tradition over its entire 80-year run.
By teaching you are taught
Finally, before I became a photo magazine editor, first at Moden Photography and then, starting in 1987, at Popular Photography. I was the manager of 3 different department store camera concessions (two on Long Island, one in Westchester NY) and worked behind the counter at Willoughby’s camera store in midtown Manhattan while attending college at NYU’s downtown campus. All these positions involved hands-on instruction, that is showing customers how to get the most out of their equipment and to achieve results they could be proud of. Providing effective hands-on instruction in simple, direct language hones the skills of the teacher as well as the “student.” And while these interactions undoubtedly enhanced my customers’ skills and helped build mutually beneficial relationships, they also made me a better photographer, and a more effective writer.
Standing up for your customers: A cautionary tale
While filling in behind the counter at another large New York camera store (which shall remain nameless) in 1960, I was assigned to the slide projector department, where we carried about a dozen different models made by reputable companies including Kodak, Sawyers, Airequipt, and Leitz. Among them was an aqua-colored Miranda Auto-Sensor Automatic Slide Projector that was positioned as a full-featured upscale model with “autofocus.” Evidently the store got a good deal on these units, and to incentivize sales they offered the store salespeople a $10 “spiff” to get them out the door—essentially an off-the-books $10 cash payment given in addition to any small sales commission. Unfortunately, the Miranda Auto-Senor projector (a branded product made in the USA) was so unreliable that returns were a staggering 40% of sales. Since I knew that, I would never recommend this turkey to my customers.
Miranda Auto-Sensor Automatic Slide Projector with manual. Full-featured but notoriously unreliable, I got in trouble because I wouldn't recommend it to my customers.
After about 2 months of selling scores of Kodak Carousels and other reliable slide projectors I got called up to the manager’s office for a stern lecture. “I notice you’re selling a pile of Kodak Carousels and even a couple of Leitz Pradovits, but not a single Miranda projector, which has a much higher profit margin. Why not? Don’t you like getting a $10 spiff? Well, I expect that to change immediately, or we’re going to have to take appropriate action!”
I looked directly at the manager and said in a calm voice, “Mr. Clark (not his real name), I really need this job, but I am not going to recommend what I know to be an unreliable piece of junk to some guy from Kansas City who comes into our store and expects to be treated with respect and receive good advice. If you think that’s a sufficient reason to fire me do what you must, but to me there are more important things than getting a $10 spiff.” P.S. I wasn’t fired, but I’m sure the manager wasn’t pleased by what he saw as my defiance of his orders. BTW, I haven’t always been a Boy Scout, but on this occasion I was.
Ultimately, “learning photography” is a lifelong project and happily I am still actively engaged in expanding my knowledge base, elevating my hands-on skills, and hopefully achieving better results. Some would describe me as an auto-didact, “a self-taught person who acquires knowledge or skills independently without a teacher or formal schooling, driven by personal curiosity and discipline.” I’m not so sure about the “discipline” part, but I definitely didn’t acquire whatever photographic knowledge or skill I possess all by myself—I stood on the shoulders of past masters of the art, craft, and science of photography.
A geeky kid with a passion for pictures earns his chops the hard way!
By Jason Schneider
Ever since I was a toddler, I’ve been fascinated with little machines that work, like mechanical watches, wind-up toys, and fancy cap pistols with revolving cylinders. However, what piqued my lifelong passion for photography were a few seemingly random events that turned out to have had a profound influence on my life.
When turned 8 years old in 1950, my Aunt Estelle (my mom’s kid sister) gave me an Ansco Panda box camera as a birthday present. Attractively styled like a twin-lens reflex with a large reflex viewfinder on top, this all-plastic, fixed focus, single shutter speed contraption (made in Binghamton, NY from 1939 to 1950) took twelve 2-1/4 x 2-1/4-in images per roll of 620 film and had a red window on the back to enable manually advancing the film to the next frame. Unfortunately, the lens (at least the one on my Panda) was simply awful and the resulting prints didn’t even rise the level of mediocrity despite my best efforts. After running 2 rolls of film through this wretched thing with disastrous results, my dad took pity on me and let me use the “family camera,” a Kodak Brownie Six-20 box camera of the late ‘30s, which took eight 2-1/4 x 3-1/4 inch images per roll, provided Instantaneous and time exposure settings, and even had two lever-set distance settings (5 to 10 feet, and beyond 10 feet) at the bottom of its spiffy art deco front plate. Despite its modest specs the Brownie performed remarkably well—far better than the Ansco Panda, and I ran dozens of rolls of Kodak Verichrome Pan 620 film through it, and had it processed and contact printed at (where else?) the local drug store in Manhattan, that had its own modest on-site black-and-white lab in the back!
My first camera, the plastic Ansco Panda, looks cool, but its lens was pretty bad. My did took pity on mr and let use the family Brownie Six-20.
Printing without a lab? All you need is “POP”
At age 10 I had a different kind of encounter with photography, also as the result of a gift, this time from my uncle Lennie, my dad’s kid brother, who presented me with a “no processing required” printing kit that was marketed as a fun science project for kids. The kit included 20 sheets of light sensitive “printing out paper” aka POP, and a frame for holding an existing negative in contact with the paper, which was then exposed to sunlight until a brownish-toned print miraculously appeared. Eventually these POP prints will fade unless you fix them by applying a fixing solution that was thoughtfully included in the kit, a process familiar to anyone who’s shot with an original Polaroid 95 in the late ‘40s. After making all 20 prints, mostly of long-lost relatives smiling stiffly and nostalgic scenes taken the in the “old countries” of Belarus, Poland, and Bessarabia, I discarded the kit. But the emotional impact it made on me and my family was permanent. For the first time I felt the visceral power of photography in preserving memories, and I’m sure that this fleeting experience at age 10 was part of the reason I eventually took up darkroom work as a teenager and eventually became a competent (though far from superlative) black-and-white printer.
My first “real” camera: an East German roll film folder with a so-so lens
By the time I morphed into a gangly adolescent of 14 in 1956, my interest in photography was becoming an obsession. I avidly devoured the Photography Annuals published by Popular Photography, which not only showcased memorable images, but also included tech data on the cameras and lenses used to shoot them. I was enthralled with the compelling pictures in each issue of Life Magazine and fantasized about becoming a renowned photojournalist. I avidly digested the latest issues of Modern Photography and Popular Photography at the local library and occasionally bought individual copies on the newsstand when they contained articles on lighting, composition, darkroom techniques, test reports on cameras and lenses, bios of great photographers, etc. I generally preferred Modern for its “straight from the shoulder” writing style “pull no punches” test reports, and exhaustive technical articles on optics, shutters, exposure metering systems, focusing methods and the like by Bennett Sherman, who had a PhD in Physics. However, Pop Photo also had its charms with such great writers as Norman Rothschild, a font of practical hands-on info delivered with breathless enthusiasm, and Bob Schwalberg, a tech genius and Leica guru whose brilliant insights were often tinged with his signature sarcasm. In the ‘50s, Pop Photo also published illustrated articles with first person commentary by such iconic masters as Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Edward Steichen, and Henri Cartier-Bresson.
I never joined a photography club in my youth, but I did have a couple of nerdy teenage buddies who were also emerging photo enthusiasts. We used to get together and jaw about such esoteric topics as Leica vs. Nikon lenses (neither of which we could afford), whether Kodak D-76 worked better as a one-shot developer or with replenishment, and which 400-speed black-and-white film had the least objectionable grain. But I was still shooting with a Kodak 620 box camera, and my friend Mike had a shiny new Minolta A-2 rangefinder 35 with a 5-element, 45mm f/2.8 Rokkor lens and shutter speeds to 1/400 sec! As a part-time counterman at the local diner, I couldn’t afford anything to equal Mike’s magnificent Minolta (a gift from his disciplinarian dad) but I was determined to get myself a “real camera” with f/stops, shutter speeds, and a focusing lens.
So, I forked over 15 cents to take the subway up from West 4th St in Greenwich Village to Union Square Station at 14th Street and trotted over to “S. Klein on the Square,” a flourishing enterprise established in 1906 that billed itself as a discount department store. It was there that I found my first “serious” camera at a price I could afford—an East German Belfoca folding roll film camera that took eight 2-1/4 x 3-1/4-inch frames per roll of 120 film or (with included mask inserted) twelve 2-1-/4 x 2-1/4-inch images per roll. It was kind if clunky even back then, but it was priced at $12.50 plus 3% New York City sales tax. Mine had a flip-up non-optical frame finder plus a small reflex finder atop the front standard that swung to vertical or horizontal viewing position, two red windows with sliding covers on the back to accommodate both formats, and a front-cell-focusing 105mm f/4.5 Meritar lens in a Prontor-S shutter on the front. The lens, a middling triplet, wasn’t very sharp wide open, but it was OK by f/5.6 and quite good at f/8 and smaller apertures. The shutter was reliable and accurate and even had a built-in self-timer that I used to take a few scary self-portraits (now thankfully misplaced). My main gripe with the Belfoca: the minimum focusing distance of the lens was 5 feet, not close enough for a full-frame head-and shoulders portrait. I could do a bit better by inserting the mask and shooting in 2-1.4 x 2-1/4 format where the lens was, in effect, a moderate telephoto, but I couldn’t compete with my pal’s Minolta, which focused down to 2.7 feet. Indeed, I couldn’t surpass him until 1958, when I acquired my second camera, a 9 x 12 cm Voigtlander Avus film pack and sheet film camera that I used with a Rada 6 x 9 cm 120 roll film adapter. It had a superb 13.5 cm f/4.5 Skopar lens (a Tessar-type) that could focus down to the macro range!
Belfoca camera by Optik Belca Kamerawerk, Dresden, VEB Kamerawerk Niedersedlitz, Germany (DDR). Mine also had a small reflex finder missing here.
Back view of Belfoca camera showing 2 red windows with sliding cover to accommodate both 6 x 9 cm and 6 x 6 cm formats on 120 roll film.
Learning about photography in the “Pre-Information Age?” Not so easy.
Ultimately, learning photography is like learning to drive a car—to attain true mastery you must acquire hands-on experience. However, to configure that hands-on experience efficiently you need good information. And acquiring that information is substantially easier and quicker today than it was back in ‘56 when Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” topped the Billboard 100. Thanks to the internet you can now instantly access and print out information on virtually any topic or go straight to the source if you need a printed copy. When I was a lad, we bought carefully selected books and visited the reading room of the library. I was fortunate indeed to live in lower Manhattan, only a few stops on the subway from the Main Branch of the New York City Public Library on Fifth Avenue at 42nd St. The main entrance of this imposing beaux arts structure adjacent to Bryant Park is flanked by two magnificent stone lions that somehow ennobled my relentless quest for photographic knowledge. Incidentally, while you were allowed to take notes (which I always did), back in the day you couldn’t photocopy any copyrighted material, though I did manage to sneak in a few photos of text pages with my friend Charlie’s cantankerous Exakta VX!
Front facade of the main branch of the NYC Public Library at 42nd St and Fifth Avenue. Note: only one of the 2 stone lions is visible. Photo by Ajay Suresh
While I don’t have a complete list of the dozens of books, booklets, and pamphlets I acquired in pursuing what amounted to an informal self-structured, course on photography, here are a few that stand out:
Photographic Optics by Arthur Cox, published by Focal Press, is a classic in the field, an authoritative and comprehensive volume with sections on basic optical concepts, the ideal lens, the optical defects in every lens, picture quality, etc. Written in a lucid style it explains many complex concepts in simple language, but parts of it can still be challenging to those (like me) who have never taken a course in optics.
History of the Photographic Lens by Rudolf Kingslake, published by Elsevier Science Publishing Company, Inc. Charming, accessible, and trustworthy, just like its author, longtime chief optical designer at Kodak and one of the top camera lens designers of the 20th century.
Lootens on Photographic Enlarging & Print Quality, by J. Ghislain Lootens, published by American Book Publishing Co. An illustrated compendium of practical hands-on information that includes invaluable information on vintage processes that is often unavailable elsewhere.
Kodak has published literally hundreds of books on a staggering variety of photographic subjects from the late 19th century to the present. Here are a handful that I found useful when studying photography on my own. Note: Not all these books were up to date, but they were unfailingly concise, well written, and easy to understand, all of which helped me build my knowledge base.
Color as seen and photographed, Eastman Kodak Co. (1951)
Elementary photographic chemistry, Eastman Kodak Co. (1941)
The fundamentals of photography, Eastman Kodak Co. (1938)
How to make good pictures; for the every-day photographer, E.K. 1936)
Negative making for professional photographers, E.K. Co. (1952)
Photography’s role in the culture of America, Eastman Kodak Co. (1953)
The Camera Store Connection: Retailers were my greatest teachers!
Yes, there are still dozens of small-to-medium-sized retailers in the U.S. that qualify as traditional “old-time camera stores” much like the ones I frequented back in the mid-1950s. However, they’re clearly an endangered species, and scores of them have shut their doors over the past two decades. Today, purchasing camera gear (especially new stuff) is mostly done online, and large stores that can offer the lowest prices and free or low-cost shipping dominate the market. If you take the time to make an in-person visit to one of the giant retailers such as B&H Photo Video or Adorama (both in NY City) Ace Photo in Ashburn VA, or Samy’s Camera, with branches on the West Coast, you may get the chance to talk over the counter with one of their incredibly knowledgeable sales people who will not only guide you to the right camera but can also sell it to you in any one of 7 different languages! Impressive indeed, but still not the same as the personal touch you can get from a hometown retailer who knows you personally, understands your present level of expertise, and can guide you along the pathway of enhancing your knowledge base, elevating your picture-taking experience, and optimizing your creative output.
New York’s “Camera District”
The nexus of my camera buying, information-seeking quest as a budding photo enthusiast back in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s was Manhattan’s de-facto “camera district,” a cluster of large and medium-sized camera stores located around 32nd St, between 6th and 7thAvenues. The stores on 32nd street included Willoughby’s, then the largest photo retailer in New York City (founded in 1898 and still operating on 36th St. under new management) Minifilm, and Fotoshop, smack in the middle of the block on the north side of the street. I also bought a lot of stuff and acquired a lot of knowledge at nearby Olden Camera and Lens Company at 890 6th Avenue near 33rd St. and became friends with Bobby Olden, the son of the founder, who hooked me up with their most knowledgeable salesmen.
Willoughby's camera store on W. 32nd in NYC. View looking west from 6th Avenue.
Willoughby's on W. 32nd St in Nrw York, night view in color.
Olden Camera back in the day, From STORE FRONT NYC by James & Karla Murray
Fotoshop (sorry no photo) was the home of my photographic guru, the late great Charlie Pelish, who taught me more about cameras, lenses, developing tanks, darkroom equipment, enlargers, etc. than I could possibly have learned by taking a college course in photography. I doubt that Charlie was an avid photographer himself (frankly, I never asked him), but he was certainly enthusiastic about photography and had an encyclopedic knowledge of vintage and modern photo equipment acquired in more than 40 years behind the counter. I also patronized Spiratone, a small photo store then located at 49 W. 27th St in Manhattan, which eventually moved to Northern Boulevard in Flushing, Queens, and became the largest supplier of photographic accessories in the U.S. Fortuitously I was able to make friends with its gracious and deliberate founder, the late great Fred Spira, a leading collector of cameras, images and photographic literature. Fred taught me much about all aspects of photography and incentivized my interest in camera collecting, which eventually resulted in my pitching The Camera Collector column to Modern Photography, and joining the staff shortly afterward as Assistant Editor in October 1969. That was the start of what turned out to be my 35-year career in photographic publishing.
November 1956 cover of Modern Photograpjy. I joined the staff 13 tears later!
July 1956 cover of Popular Photography showcased compelling images, a tradition over its entire 80-year run.
By teaching you are taught
Finally, before I became a photo magazine editor, first at Moden Photography and then, starting in 1987, at Popular Photography. I was the manager of 3 different department store camera concessions (two on Long Island, one in Westchester NY) and worked behind the counter at Willoughby’s camera store in midtown Manhattan while attending college at NYU’s downtown campus. All these positions involved hands-on instruction, that is showing customers how to get the most out of their equipment and to achieve results they could be proud of. Providing effective hands-on instruction in simple, direct language hones the skills of the teacher as well as the “student.” And while these interactions undoubtedly enhanced my customers’ skills and helped build mutually beneficial relationships, they also made me a better photographer, and a more effective writer.
Standing up for your customers: A cautionary tale
While filling in behind the counter at another large New York camera store (which shall remain nameless) in 1960, I was assigned to the slide projector department, where we carried about a dozen different models made by reputable companies including Kodak, Sawyers, Airequipt, and Leitz. Among them was an aqua-colored Miranda Auto-Sensor Automatic Slide Projector that was positioned as a full-featured upscale model with “autofocus.” Evidently the store got a good deal on these units, and to incentivize sales they offered the store salespeople a $10 “spiff” to get them out the door—essentially an off-the-books $10 cash payment given in addition to any small sales commission. Unfortunately, the Miranda Auto-Senor projector (a branded product made in the USA) was so unreliable that returns were a staggering 40% of sales. Since I knew that, I would never recommend this turkey to my customers.
Miranda Auto-Sensor Automatic Slide Projector with manual. Full-featured but notoriously unreliable, I got in trouble because I wouldn't recommend it to my customers.
After about 2 months of selling scores of Kodak Carousels and other reliable slide projectors I got called up to the manager’s office for a stern lecture. “I notice you’re selling a pile of Kodak Carousels and even a couple of Leitz Pradovits, but not a single Miranda projector, which has a much higher profit margin. Why not? Don’t you like getting a $10 spiff? Well, I expect that to change immediately, or we’re going to have to take appropriate action!”
I looked directly at the manager and said in a calm voice, “Mr. Clark (not his real name), I really need this job, but I am not going to recommend what I know to be an unreliable piece of junk to some guy from Kansas City who comes into our store and expects to be treated with respect and receive good advice. If you think that’s a sufficient reason to fire me do what you must, but to me there are more important things than getting a $10 spiff.” P.S. I wasn’t fired, but I’m sure the manager wasn’t pleased by what he saw as my defiance of his orders. BTW, I haven’t always been a Boy Scout, but on this occasion I was.
Ultimately, “learning photography” is a lifelong project and happily I am still actively engaged in expanding my knowledge base, elevating my hands-on skills, and hopefully achieving better results. Some would describe me as an auto-didact, “a self-taught person who acquires knowledge or skills independently without a teacher or formal schooling, driven by personal curiosity and discipline.” I’m not so sure about the “discipline” part, but I definitely didn’t acquire whatever photographic knowledge or skill I possess all by myself—I stood on the shoulders of past masters of the art, craft, and science of photography.
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