Did the Press Use Folders?

[m._howard_edwards]

In the movie "Changeling," in addition to the expected Press cameras, I noticed some press photographers were

using Graflex SLR cameras with focus hoods and some used medium format folders. I thought the big SLRs would be

too awkward for this duty, and folders were amateur cameras in the 1920's, not something a professional photog

would use for a do-not-miss shot. Was this just some guys using some "old looking" cameras thinking we would not

know better?

 

I wanted to give Clint Eastwood more credit for authenticity. But then I was not around when this story took

place, so I do not know for sure what they used during this era; do you?

[lex_jenkins]

I've seen many photos taken of press photographers at work in that era and, yup, some did indeed use the Graflex

SLR. Keep in mind that during that era it seemed start of the art and offered certain advantages over other

cameras used by photojournalists.

 

A quick search should turn up a fairly well known photo of Dorothea Lange using a 4x5 Graflex Super D.

 

Many PJs carry all kinds of cameras so it wouldn't strike me as unusual to see a one using anything, if only as a

backup. Decades ago carrying a folder would have been more or less equivalent to toting a P&S digicam. Press

photography can be more varied than you might imagine if your experience is limited to what you see on TV, which

are usually major news events. I've worked for small papers where reporters were issued simple P&S film cameras.

And I've worked as a darkroom tech for one particular paper where I *wished* the reporters had been issued P&S

cameras rather than manual SLRs - their exposures were routinely horrible.

[leicaglow]

This is a cool article from NPR...

http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/2002/sept/lapd_photos/

 

Also, there are some great crime scene books. One is New York Noir and another is A Shot In The Dark. They both have images of photographers with large format cameras. One of these books has a LF camera on the cover (can't remember which one, but go to Amazon.com).

[nickc1]

In mainland europe press photographers in the early part of the last century often used folding cameras such as these:

 

http://www.xs4all.nl/~lommen9/Hoofdpagina/european.html

 

(and a big thankyou to Jo Lommen for such an interesting site)

 

Nick

[charles_stobbs3]

Speed Graphics (4X5) were the standard newspaper camera for years. It's my impresion that the printing plates were directly contact printed from the negatives with no photoprints necessary.. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can confirm or dispute with a more detailed description of the process.

[mrraz]

Charles, Prints, usually 8x10, were always made so the halftone process could be employed to reproduce the image in a newspaper or magazine. The photographic print would be copied using a line screen between the print and the light sensitive metal plate which would then be chemically etched to produce the printing plate.

 

It is the eye's inability to see closely spaced dots that made halftone printing feasible. It's another reason that newspapers always looked so contrasty. Each generation away from the original print increased the contrast. Most original prints used in this process by newspapers were printed flat to moderate the increase during the printing process.

[paul_goutiere]

In 1964 I took a job at a small daily newspaper as a "cub" photographer. We used a Speed graphic and a Crown

Graphic both 4x5. Negatives and prints were developed in Dektol then directly into the fix. Yes, ghastly!

 

We would not use any other camera.

 

I would print the pictures, using a Beseler 4x5 enlarger, in multiples of column widths usually no more than 4

inches wide by whatever deep and submit them to the editor. If and when approved they would be resized if

necessary and then scanned by a device called a "Scan a Graver" which would transfer the image to a sheet of

nitrocellulose (!) with a hot stylus.

 

This newspaper used letterpress, not the far more versatile offset.