Category: Blog

You don’t find many photography studios in retail locations anymore,  but in the early 1960s they were still fairly common. By the time I entered high school in 1962, I had worked for two such establishments, both in Virginia where I spent my summers. In a stroke of luck for which I would be forever grateful, the New Jersey high school I would eventually attend was still under construction and the old one was so crowded that split sessions had to be initiated. As a result, during my first two years of high school I didn’t begin classes until noon each day. Happily, this enabled me to have a job each weekday morning. Pursuing my passion for photography was more important to me than any of the subjects I studied in school, and I jumped at the chance to apply for a job at R.J. Mason Studio, a local business near our home.

Shown here at work, R.J. Mason was a maverick compared to the first two portrait photographers I’d worked for in Virginia. They were both proponents of the type of highly-retouched, idealized portraiture promoted by the Professional Photographers of America, of which they were both members. Mason hated the dated aesthetic of the PPofA and took a more contemporary approach to his work. He was also a true generalist, shooting products for advertising, model headshots, architecture,  portraits, as well as a few very interesting sidelines.

I was delighted when Mr. Mason said he’d be willing to interview me about working there. After I showed some of my prints  and stumbled through an encapsulation of my experience with the Virginia studios, he paused a while and then said to his wife Agnes, “Maybe he could do the baby pictures?” After a moment’s thought, she said, “That might work.” And so, at 14 years old, I had landed a dream job.

On a typical morning I would arrive around 8:30 and set up the studio’s darkroom. Mrs. Mason arrived a little after 9:00, having spent the first part of her morning socializing with other business owners at the local coffee shop. After mixing the processing solutions needed for the day, my responsibility was to work in the darkroom to complete all the orders for contact prints. These were wallet size portraits of high school seniors, along with small ID photos for passports and licenses. Contact prints are made by placing the photo paper in direct contact with the negative. Like others studios I’d worked for in the 1960s, the Masons used 4×5 inch sheet film for nearly everything.

Three mornings a week at around 10:30, the routine for which I’d been hired began. The Masons had an arrangement with the local hospital to photograph all the newborn babies. I would ride my bike over to the hospital each morning to take pictures of the newborns. I photographed the babies though the same large window used by all the adoring family members during visiting hours. I received from the nurses a slip of paper with the last name of each baby. As the bassinets were each rolled up to the window to be photographed, I carefully recorded the frame number next to each name. It was critical to do this correctly since it was the only way to insure each mother actually received a photo of her baby and not someone else’s! I messed up a lot of things during my time at the Masons but never this.

I processed the film as soon as I returned to the studio, since a volunteer from the hospital picked up the pictures that same afternoon. For those parents who chose to purchase them (nearly all) the cost was $4.00, of which the hospital ‘s Women’s Auxiliary received a share. Once I had hung the wet film in the film dryer, Mrs. Mason took over the printing operation and I was off to school.

I probably photographed over 500 babies during my first two years of high school. Those newborns have just turned sixty years old. Many are parents themselves, some are grandparents, and surely a certain number have passed on. I sometimes wonder how many still around have the photograph I made of them when they were less than 36 hours old.

 

 

 

One evening when I was ten years old, an abandoned and dilapidated house in our neighborhood caught fire and was soon enveloped in flames. I hurried over to the scene with my camera, thinking such a big fire could represent a chance  for me to have a photo of mine appear in our daily paper, The Bergen Evening Record. I rushed home to develop the film and make a print. When I called the paper however, I was told that they were sorry but I had missed the deadline for the next day’s paper.  If something like this were to ever happen again, I was told, I shouldn’t bother processing the film myself but I should take it immediately to the paper’s office, and they would develop it.

I was terribly disappointed but, as things turned out, the Record published a monthly newspaper just for paperboys and they offered to publish my picture there, along with the story of how I had rushed to the fire with my camera and printed the photo in my basement darkroom. Looking back, I realize the people at the paper thought the newsworthy part of this was not so much that an abandoned house had burned down as that a 10 year old photographer had been able to get a photo done so quickly. Either way,  even though only other paperboys saw it, this was the first photo of mine to ever appear in print and I was quite proud of myself.

In a year or two, my photographic skills had improved so much that I decided to apply to one of our weekly papers for an after school job. The offices of the Park Ridge Local were in the next town over from ours, so one afternoon I took some of my best photos and went to visit the editor and publisher, Mr. George Graves. I think Mr. Graves was also more impressed by my young age than by my pictures. He was an irascible old guy who seemed to do a little of everything at the paper, from writing many of the stories to working the Linotype machine and the printing press. Mr. Graves took kindly to me and said he would send some assignments my way. The pay was a few dollars per picture, big money to a 12 year old in 1960.

Mr. Graves kept me busy. There were the women’s club events, the boys who had become Eagle scouts, the policemen who had been promoted to sergeant, the famous entertainers or politicians who had come to speak at the local high school. I photographed them all—thanks to the willingness of my mom to drive me to the events and wait while I got my shots. Every Memorial Day was a windfall , with parades to cover in nearly every nearby town.

The first thing I learned from Mr. Graves was that newspaper photographers are also responsible for the captions that appear with the photos. These are the first thing people read, he explained, and the text had to be very accurate—most especially the spelling of each person’s name.  Every week he patiently critiqued my pictures and suggested how they could be improved.

One thing I quickly learned was how eager people were to have their picture appear in the newspaper. At events I was often surprised at how people were so welcoming to me and, if I couldn’t stay long, were even willing to interrupt their meeting to pose for a photo. With Mr. Graves as my mentor, I became an expert at group shots, making sure each person was visible and getting folks to smile for the camera on cue. I also mastered those frequent “grip and grin” shots—two business leaders or politicians shaking hands energetically while smiling broadly for the camera.

While it certainly boosted my young ego to see my name in the photo credit that appeared beneath each of my photos, the paper’s reproduction of the photos themselves left much to be desired. Whatever do-it-yourself process Mr. Graves used to reproduce the photos, it involved creating an etched plastic plate that was used in the printing press. The reproduction of photos printed this way compared very poorly to other newspapers that used metal plates. The contrast of the pictures was poor and the unpleasant lines of the etching machine were, at least to my eye, very disturbing. While this was probably a very minor concern for the average subscriber, it had become a weekly disappointment for me to see my photos reproduced so poorly.

This was not a problem at the nearby Westwood News, another weekly paper that was the Local’s only competitor. Their quality of printing was equal to that of any daily paper. I so much wanted to see my photos appear with that level of quality that one day, without asking Mr. Graves, I showed up the Westwood News office to offer my services to Mrs. Shirley Rehill, the editor. Mrs. Rehill happened to have been friends with my mom, and was happy to send me assignments. For a few months my photos appeared in both papers, though from different events to be sure. And of course, out of concern for how Mr. Graves might react, I asked Mrs. Rehill not to run a photo credit under any of my pictures that appeared in the Westwood News.

Though I was gratified to see my photos reproduced so well, after a while it began to bother me that in the Westwood News they appeared without any photo credit. I began to wonder if Mr. Graves even read the Westwood News. Perhaps he didn’t, or if he did perhaps he would not even care if my photos appeared there as well as in his paper. They were of different events after all. Yes, I thought, perhaps he wouldn’t even notice or care. So one week I decided to tell Mrs. Rehill that from that issue on it was okay to have “photo by Bruce Parker” appear in the captions under my photos.

A day or two after the next issue of the Westwood News appeared, I went to deliver an assignment to Mr. Graves. He took the photos I handed him without looking up from his desk and then he tossed an envelope to me across the desk. “There’s your pay for the pictures,” he said. “Just take it and go. And don’t come back.”

“Don’t come back?” I stammered. “What’s wrong?”

“You know damn well what’s wrong,” Mr. Graves said angrily. “You didn’t know anything about this business when you came to me. I taught you the ropes. I kept you on when there were problems—and there were a lot of problems early on, my friend. I helped you in every way I could. And what thanks do I get? You go off to work for the competition.”

I offered some feeble explanation about the plastic plates and how all I wanted was for my photos to look better in print. “You know,” he said, “that almost makes what you did worse. Just take the money and go.”

There was nothing more to say. I took the envelope, left and never saw Mr. Graves again. I felt terrible but not as terrible as I should have felt considering my behavior. I had caved in to purely self-centered motives twice actually. Once by such over-fastidiousness over how my photos looked in print that I was willing to betray my mentor and then again by needing to have that all-important photo credit.

One of my seminary professors used to say that most the trouble in the world was due to people needing to have that “last éclair.” You may have had the whole box to yourself and eaten up every other one but there it sits, that last éclair that you could forego, but you’ve just got to have it. That sadly was what my youthful self had also insisted on having.

 

One of the things I’ve always loved about working in the darkroom is the wonderful red or amber illumination that’s used when making black and white prints. The ceiling fixtures that emit this beautiful light are called safelights because they are safe for you to work under while using photographic paper which is sensitive to green and blue light but not red or, what’s more commonly used today, amber.

My first use of a safelight was about sixty-five years ago—the tiny red bulb that came with the little Ansco darkroom kit which I bought with the earnings from my paper route. My first experience was a bad one. I used the tiny 7 1/2 watt bulb with black and white film which, unlike photographic paper, is sensitive to all colors, red included. As a result, the film was completely ruined. It’s one of the few photographic mistakes I never made again. Even when used with photo paper, however, the brightness of the safelight and the length of time the paper is exposed to it are both critical factors. Even a safelight is not completely safe! Like so many things with film photography, the questions of safelight brightness and duration can only be determined by testing.

Over the past six decades as an inveterate darkroom worker, I’ve tested safelights many times and in many darkrooms. It’s crossed my mind this week that, at 74, I may have just done so for the last time. Actually, I hope so! Doing it correctly is a rather tedious process. The old fashioned method is deceptively simple. You set out a sheet of photo paper in total darkness and on top of it you place a couple coins. Turn on your safelight for the time you expect to normally have the paper under its light and process the sheet of paper. If you can see the outline of the coins, your safelight is too bright, too close to the paper, or you’ve exceeded the time for which the light is “safe.”

Sounds easy but, as is usual in film photography, simple is usually not accurate. The thing is photo paper once exposed to light at all—such as the light from your enlarger that actually creates the image—becomes slightly more sensitive to any additional exposure­—such as your safelight produces. As a result for a truly accurate test, you have to use paper that has been slightly pre-exposed to test your safelight—not the unexposed paper used in the coin test. There are many methods to accomplish this. Suffice it to say my method involves creating the little test prints you see hanging on the clothesline.

What I learned technically is that to safely use Ilford Multigrade photographic paper in my darkroom, my three Thomas sodium vapor ceiling safelights need to have installed a Rosco R19 (deep red) filter to eliminate the spike in blue-green light the lamp emits, as well as 4 1/2 stops of neutral density (gray) filters to cut back on the lamp’s brightness. Under this illumination I can safely leave my photo paper face up for a full two minutes on the baseboard of either one of my three enlargers. The safelight’s graying down effect (called fogging) can’t be seen in the test prints until the paper has been subject to this level of safelight illumination for 180 seconds (three minutes,)

Doing this test allowed me to have slightly brighter illumination than I had been using in the darkroom—something that’s always welcome. But more importantly, it allowed me to be fully confident that my prints have all the sparkle and life of a well-made darkroom print and that the highlights of these prints (and near-highlights) are not grayed down by a safelight that’s too bright, too close, or used for too long a time.

In the precise world of digital photography, having to test safelights seems the quaint legacy of a bygone technology. Of course, serious digital photography requires  testing too. The difference is most it can be done  sitting in front of a computer monitor and entering things on a keyboard. The physicality of traditional film photography is something that’s missing from this exacting world of digital image making.

My little test prints traveled through a series of chemical baths that I prepared from scratch by weighing out powdered chemicals. I had to use time and temperature controls to expose and process each test print in exactly the same way. I had to wash them in running water to remove the residual chemicals. I had to slop the limp little sheets from tray to tray as I’ve done with prints for six decades now. But the practice of traditional photography—with its timers, thermometers, powdered chemicals, the gentle sound of running water, and yes, that soft amber illumination of the darkroom—never gets old for me! I love the physicality of it all, yes even if it turns out I actually have to test safelights again before old age confines me to doing my photography on a laptop.

 

 

 

I was 24 years old when I first processed color negative film in Kodak’s new C-41 chemistry. I owned  a small custom processing lab at the time. We had been running C-22 , C-41’a very  time-consuming predecessor. I certainly welcomed the simplicity of process C-41, even though maintaining  the  new 100° processing temperature presented some challenges. It’s hard  to believe that C-41 was introduced a half-century ago in 1972, ! When digital photography became practical in the 1990s, I switched over to it for my professional shooting but I continued using C-41 films for my creative work. Recently however,  I’ve thought seriously  about giving up C-41 because the cost of color film has risen so dramatically. The processing chemistry was also becoming difficult to find.  I thought the  six rolls of color negative film I had shot over the summer would be my last. But when I  began scanning and printing the negatives, I became convinced I needed to stay with my my hybrid analog-to-digital workflow. I have a number  of  cameras that all use 120 roll film. I generally use either Kodak’s Ektar 100 or Portra 400 film which I process in a Jobo processor. I scanning the resulting negatives with a Hasselblad Flextight scanner. From these scans I make pigment prints using a large format Epson printer and Colorbyte RIP software. There’s a certain hard-to-definable look these prints have over those generated from a digital camera. Even though my digital camera’s dynamic range is better than ten stops, the colors from film seem softer somehow and the highlight gradation seems better. I’ve decided to stay with C-41 as long as I can afford to.