Photography Can Be Fun

advice for the beginner from a self-acknowledged expert

It's almost impossible for me to sit here in the kitchen on this economysize case of panchromatic film and realize that only four months ago I didn't know the first thing about photography. At that time I thought A.S.A. was simply the first name of the late Al Jolson. Since I have more or less mastered photography during these four months, it is only fair that I pass on some valuable information to those who are just beginners.

First, I want to say that I have nothing against my former hobby: amateur radio. It's just that it was so darned expensive; I'll bet I spent at least fifteen dollars every month on radio parts. I'll admit that when I switched to photography the initial outlay in cash was quite a shock, but I felt sure that these expenses would drop to practically nothing once I got rolling. I'll have more to say about this in a few minutes when I shall discuss Bank Financing.

Naturally, the beginner will ask, "What kind of camera shall I buy?" Well, I personally shoot with a 35mm camera, but let me say this: don't be discouraged if you can't seem to master a particular type of camera. You can always get a more elaborate one. Remember, the more work the camera does, the less you have to do. As an illustration, notice the two pictures shown here of a girl in a swing. The one on the left (Figure 2) was taken with an old box camera that I've had for years. Notice how ordinary the scene looks? Everything is in focus, there is nothing truly different about the photograph. I shot this same scene, shown on the right, with my new 35mm camera using an f2 lens (the only lens I have), a shutter speed of 1/10, and a focus set at 12 feet. You may ask why I used such a slow shutter as 1/10. Nice thinking. My reason for doing this is to give a true feeling of motion to the girl in the swing. You'll notice that she is slightly blurred, but let me hasten to say that I planned it that way. Now look at these two pictures again:

I have found that you don't have to travel far to capture interesting subject matter: you'll find it right in your own neighborhood. That certain "earthiness" you see in many of my pictures is possible because I live in an area where I'm surrounded by simple folk, like the girl in the swing. You'll find that one of the joys in photography is recording little pieces of life as they exist around you. There are quite a few around me--in fact, there are four living right on my own block.

A word here about focus. I find that 12 feet is a nice focus. I try not to disturb this setting on my camera if I can help it. If I do, that means just one more thing I have to remember to set the next time. Rather than take any chances, I just tell my subjects that I work on a 12-foot focus, then if they move in or out that's just their tough luck.

Like every good photographer, I owe a great deal to my wife. She has given me 90 days to pay it back though, and that helps. I had to borrow enough to get the developer, hypo, paper, film, and more recently, the enlarger. Her sweet disposition has been invaluable to me. Naturally, I have had to re-arrange the house a bit in order to work more efficiently. If she were inclined to be short-tempered she certainly would have complained by this time about having to cook on a hotplate in the bathroom.

In spite of all this, she has maintained her sense of humor; only yesterday she threatened to leave me; a lot of wives would have said something cross. Here's something I haven't told her because I'm keeping it as a surprise: I'm quitting my job so I can devote full time to photography right here at home. I know she will see things in a new light then.

Many of you newcomers to the art will have cameras that are parallax-corrected from infinity down to 10 feet. Pictures taken closer than 10 feet are apt to give you trouble, because the view you see through your viewfinder is not the same view the lens is seeing at that moment. This phenomenon, known as parallax, is likely to cause you to cut off heads with your camera, as shown here in Figure 4. The obvious remedy is to shoot higher than you think you should. In doing this you will at first tend to miss your subject altogether, as shown in Figure 5. When this happens, do not throw the negative away; you may have an excellent shot of a cloud formation or a beamed ceiling. I got a startling shot of the Douglas F-103 doing an Immelman Turn in just this manner. Anyway, with considerable practice you will be able to get the picture you are striving for, in this case shown in Figure 6. Incidentally, this trouble caused by parallax is just one more reason why I prefer to work at 12 feet. I have every reason to believe that someday, just as Paul Outerbridge is known as a color expert, I shall be known as a 12-footfocus man. Already I have many of my friends on the lookout for me in case they see any good shots 12 feet away.

Without giving it much thought, I sent the first two or three rolls of my 35mm film to the drugstore for processing, just as I had been doing for years with my old box camera. It didn't take me long to realize that this was economically wrong since I could process the stuff myself for just pennies a roll, and morally wrong since I owed it to my pictures to give them the perfect mechanical attention which my latent images demanded. So I began developing and printing for just pennies a roll. When I figured it all out, each roll was costing me 639 pennies. Here's a tip for you beginners: that's too much money. I soon realized that my mistake was in buying just one can of developer and hypo at a time, so I made a deal with the Bank of America to finance the whole works, enlarger included, for $26 a month for only 30 months. The beauty of it is, this gives me enough material to turn out pictures for at least 60 days.

You may wonder why I keep mentioning the enlarger as an afterthought. The truth is, I hadn't intended to get one until my finances were in better shape, but something a friend said to me made me so mad that I bought an enlarger the next day. During one of his visits to my house I broke out my display of 35mm contact prints and said, "There! How's this for a hobby?" His reply was, "Wonderfull There is a great deal to be said for stamp collecting."

I know that many impetuous readers are scanning this article as fast as they can in search of the paragraph on Action Photos. Well, here it is. I have deliberately placed this paragraph towards the end so you would first have to read about fundamentals before you try the tricky stuff. Now, most novices are taught to watch for "peaks of action" in taking this kind of picture. This is all right as far as it goes, but supposing you're not very fast with your camera. Good, but not fast. With this problem in mind, I have developed two other methods to turn out superb action pictures, and both have caused raised eyebrows in photographic circles. One method gives the illusion of action, while the other shows action itself. In the first case, I simply take a series of shots of the event in question, and the illusion of the complete action is imparted, even though the peak itself may have been missed. In Figures 7 and 8 you see two shots of a cat catching a mouse. Actually, the cat caught the mouse between these two photos, while I was re-loading my camera, but the impact is not lost certainly.

My other method of getting ace action photos is to arrange the action so that it will occur as the shutter is tripped. After all, action pictures need not be happy accidents; you, as a photographer, can certainly create some activity. Figure 9 is a fine example of my own work along these lines. As I tell you how I got this thrilling shot, bear in mind that this is strictly advanced work. First, I set my camera on a tripod pointing at the elevator door on the third floor of the Yale Professional Building. Then I placed a dozen small ball bearings on the floor of the corridor next to the elevator door. From that moment on it was just a matter of time. You can see from the picture that I was ready. Not only did I get an excellent action shot, but I carefully observed the rules of composition. You art students will be quick to notice the familiar S-curve in there someplace. I was rather proud of this shot, and when I submitted it to the editor of the Times because of its human-interest value, I wasn't surprised when he told me it was definitely front-page material. I believe that salon-type pictures like this definitely do not need captions, but the Times editor put one under it anyway. It read: District Attorney Sues Photographer For Ten Thousand Dollars.

Actually, I do have a third method of getting topnotch action pictures, but it is not an original idea; Life Magazine photographers have been doing it for years. The idea is to shoot around the main action. That is to say, there are times when shooting the action itself is a physical impossibility and the only thing to do is to take pictures of events that are closely related to the main action. Perhaps you recall the experience of lensman Jess Kripnik during the 1938 Chess Tournament in Brussels. Since cameras were not allowed in the chess room, Jess did the next best thing. He got a picture of the loser back in his hotel room blowing his brains out with a German Luger. This one picture alone revealed at a glance how heated the game must have been. Applying this interesting technique to my own work, I took the picture shown in Figure 10 of the Harlem Globe Trotters during one of their most thrilling contests. Since I couldn't attend the game myself, I did the next best thing: I took a picture of my wife watching the event on television. I am particularly fond of this shot because there are few sports faster than basketball.

I don't say that it's a waste of money to buy special lenses, because this glassgrinding is something that must take several days to learn to do yourself, but I am going to mention one lens that you needn't buy if you're smart. That's the wide-angle lens. Now this lens is fine for taking close-ups of short, heavy people, but for a really outstanding panoramic view I prefer to take a series of shots, rotating my camera a bit from left to right with each shot. A friendly word to the amateur: if you plan to photograph ping-pong games this way, you simply must be speedy.

After trying the usual number of baby pictures, sporting events, news photos and so forth, the neophyte will at last come face to face with the one type of photograph that separates the men from the boys: the nude. A good nude represents our art in its highest form and it is by far the most difficult to compose. Perhaps you are familiar with my 72-page pamphlet describing how the photographer must keep trying, trying, trying to perfect his nude pictures, titled Cheesecake or Bust. The picture on which I pride myself the most took me over three weeks to resolve into its final presentation. To show you the work that went into it I suppose I could display here the dozens of preliminary shots that I had to reject. I think the best way to show you the rigid standards I have laid down for my nudes is just to print here the picture itself (Figure 11). Notice, if you will, that it certainly fulfills the number one requirement for this type of photograph: namely, it must be nudey as all get out.

I'm going to say only a word or two about these last two pictures. Figure 13 is an interesting close-up of my right index finger. Never mind how I happened to get it, the important thing is how nicely the finger adapts itself to back-lighting. Another top photographer here in Los Angeles felt so strongly about this picture that he said simply, "No one will believe it." He suggested that in the future I use a Minox camera on a seven-inch tripod for really good finger pictures. This shot has a secondary point of interest which I will mention now for what it is worth. Behind my finger about 30 feet away lie three survivors of the ill-fated Nancy Bell who had just collapsed on the beach after a 72-mile swim to safety. Some of my closer friends urged me to submit this dramatic negative to the wire services for nationwide release, but my inherent modesty and natural distaste for commercialism compelled me to keep it unheralded in my files. I submit it here only for its technical value.

Available Light Photography certainly offers a challenge to the beginner, and here again I can change the speed of your progress. In my own experience I've had considerable difficulty taking indoor pictures in natural lighting because when people become aware of my camera they snap on every light in the house in an effort to help me. Of course this destroys the effect I am after. I finally developed a technique that is especially valuable at parties. I simply move quietly through the house, throw open the first door I come to, and snap the shutter. Figure 13 shows what I got in a dimly lit room with no outside source of light. If you try this yourself, be sure to holler "Surprise!" as soon as you snap the picture or else the person involved might be put out somewhat. What's worse, you might be put out. If you're wondering about technical details in this picture, I might tell you that fast-thinking on my part did the trick. I didn't have time to take a reading with my light meter, so I quickly rated my Tri-X film at 7000 and let 'er go. This neat move, coupled with forced development over a No. 2 acetylene torch, allowed me to preserve the expression of reckless abandon on the subject.

I have set down these fundamentals regarding black-and-white photography so that you, as a beginner, will have an easier time of it, but remember this: you can't rush the thing. It takes time, time, and more time. Bear in mind that four months ago even I didn't know anything about photography. The only thing I regret about catching on so fast is that now there is nothing left to learn.

I am going to write an article all about color photography, as soon as I expose a couple of rolls.