chuckography

A good friend gave me an exceptional gift, a slick coffee table -size copy of "MOMENTS - The Pulitzer Prize-Winning Photographs," by Hal Buell.

WOW..what a picture-rich treasure trove to give to a photographer!

Not only visually exciting, but it is also filled with background on how the winning photos were taken and with the type of camera. 

The camera I carried for my high school Annual in the fifties, the one issued to me as a USMC photographer and even when I started as a staff photographer at the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper in the sixties, was a 4x5 Speed Graphic!

That camera was introduced in 1912 and so pervasive was the camera among newspaper photographers of the 1930s and 1940s - even into the 1950s - that simply carrying one was, in and of itself, a Press Pass!

Early Pulitzer Prize-winning photos between 1942 and 1954 - and several after that - were made with the sturdy workhorse press camera, the Speed Graphic.

To "snap" a picture (they hated that word), meant changing the 2-sided film holder, remove the slide covering the film, replace the flashbulb, cock the shutter, sight the picture, focus the camera, set the proper lens aperture, and, at the right moment, press the shutter release button. 

If you mistimed it, it took about 6 to 8 seconds to repeat the process and try again., hence the common call-out "One more, please!"

In Korea, in the 1950s, American photographers started using smaller  21/4 x 21/4 format twin-lens cameras like Rolleiflex and Rolleicord that took 12-exposure film rolls instead of the single sheet film holder on the classic Graphic.

By the mid-sixties, most news photographers were using 35mm cameras. 

At the paper in San Diego, we first begrudgingly set aside our Speed Graphics and started carrying a twin-lens roll film Mamiyaflex for a few years then went even smaller camera crazy, switching to 35mm Nikon cameras and lenses.

A year ago I found a bargain and bought me a classic reminder of my earlier photography years and now have a well-preserved Speed Graphic sitting on my shelf at home!