THE EXCITING ERA OF THE BIG CAMERA AND
HOW PRESS PHOTOGRAPHY BEGAN
 Today’s largely automatic light-weight digital equipment is a far cry from the heavy, single shot, glass-plate cameras used by early press photographers. These cameras, made of wood, brass and leather, could weigh up to 5lbs and the plates and holders for perhaps a dozen exposures could weigh at least as much again. The early photographers had no range-finder, exposure meter or flash and they would not know if they had a useable picture until their plates had been developed in the darkroom. Yet these stalwarts quickly laid the foundation for a new era of illustrated magazines and newspapers.
 This exciting period in the history of photography is traced in a book by Reg Holloway, himself an apprentice reporter/photographer in England for six years from 1947, who now lives in Canada.
His book records that the first photographers sent on assignment covered the Crimean War in 1855 and the American Civil War from 1861. They used 8x10inch field cameras on tripods and with wet plates that had to be coated before each exposure. But at that time, in order for photographs to be published, they had to be converted into line images. True press photography began when the halftone process allowed photographs to be made into “granulated pictures” without the assistance of artists.
The first halftone image appeared on the front page of the inaugural issue of the Canadian Illustrated News in Montreal on October 30, 1869. It was a picture by William Notman of Queen Victoria’s son Prince Arthur who had just arrived in Canada to spend a year with his regiment.
 The process was developed by William Augustus Leggo, an engraver. Leggo and his collaborator, the publisher of the Illustrated News, Georges-Edward Desbarats, took the process to the United States where in 1873 they founded the New York Daily Graphic. In 1880 the Graphic became the first daily paper to use the process to reproduce a photograph on the same page as text. Shortly afterwards, newspapers in Britain began to use halftones. By the 1890s the process had been improved and the photographic image could be reproduced cheaply and accurately. A profusion of illustrated magazines appeared in North America and Europe and editors demanded more and better photographs.
Fortunately, says Reg Holloway, at about the same time as the halftone process was introduced, photographers were being liberated from the restrictions of field cameras, wet plates and long exposures. Commercially-prepared dry plates with much faster emulsions allowed shorter exposures and hand-held cameras were produced. Nevertheless the first cameras made with the news photographer in mind were still large, heavy and limited compared to those that would evolve.
 "During a period of sixty years (and for some a little more), press photographers would wield large and rugged, but often handsome, equipment and they created a romantic image of themselves; an image that remains synonymous with the craft they established," says Holloway. Nevertheless, their behavior in groups was questionable from the start: as the book records, a pack of photographers in London in 1924 broke through a police line to photograph the arrival of six US aviators on the first round the world flight. As Reg remarks, a scrum in which everybody was wielding a large and heavy wooden camera could be a dangerous situation.
He has called his book, The Evolution and Demise of the Larger Format Press Camera. He admits that the title is not exactly snappy but thinks it appropriately describes an important period in the history of photography and is in keeping with the laborious procedure involved in using the early press cameras – a procedure that he describes in detail. He traces the beginnings of press photography and the large format equipment available; the introduction of new techniques; the use of flash powder (and some disastrous explosions); the development of other means of illumination; the challenge provided by roll film and 35mm; some of the enterprising methods used to obtain pictures (including the suspension of one photographer from weather balloons which had to  be deflated by a sharp-shooting priest to bring him back to earth); and some of the ways used to get material back to the office (carrier pigeons were kept on the staff of some newspapers until 1938 and later). The book is profusely illustrated and contains detailed descriptions of more than 20 classic press cameras. Holloway believes it will interest anybody who is or was involved in photography or is fascinated by old cameras.
All the cameras illustrated are in the author’s collection which he assembled from many parts of the world during 30 years in the British foreign service following his career as a reporter (his last three positions were as Consul General in Toronto from 1981, Senior British Trade Commissioner in Hong Kong from 1985 and Consul General in Los Angeles from 1989). He now tends and uses his old cameras at his home on Mountain Lake in the Haliburton Highlands of Ontario where his wife, Anna (also a former journalist) is a Master Gardener and artist.
Reg is pleased to respond to enquries by email. The Evolution and Demise of the Larger Format Press Camera is available from him or the publisher, Epic Press in Belleville, Ontario (info @essence-publishing.com).
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