Pixiq

I recently ran over some very old Popular Photography magazines from the late '40's and early '50's. What fun looking at the ads and the how-to articles. What really struck me was that while some things change a lot, the cameras and the lighting, some things just never change. An editorial in one of these magazines really caught my eye, as it was complaining about how new innovations in photography was making it sooo easy for people to become photographers. You gotta love it. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

I’ll be writing more about that later, but this post is about a great link someone sent me about an old film on photographing models in 1940. It's a great window into studio shooting in the days of 8x10 Deardorf cameras and hot lights.

They were still using Deardorf cameras in studios when I came to NY in the ‘70’s. Some studios used to use it as a test for new assistants. If you knew how to fold one up, you knew enough to be an assistant. It wasn’t an easy thing to do if you didn’t know how it was done, not intuitive at all.

Anyway, watch this great look into another era. The gruff professional photographer, who I love in this, what a pro, comes in at about the 3:30 mark, the studio shooting at the 4:30 mark. The sequence toward the very end where they hang the moon is one of my favorite parts. And thinking about how photographers looked for and at models back then and compare that method with today’s online model searches is a hoot. Why, back then “hundreds of girls” made a living as professional models.

It’s all done in the smart aleck, wise guy tone that is so ‘40’s. If you love lines like “Does your camera ever get a cold shutter and feel a little negative?” as much as I love ‘em, you’ll really enjoy this.