John Garman Oral History Interview (3 of 3)

In his third and final interview, Garman begins with detailing what “watchers” were with a bit of prompting from Jennifer Lee. They were volunteers during World War II that observed the sky and had a direct line to military command in case of an event. This later introduces the subject of what Garman taught to some of the military cadets at Oregon State University. Examples include aerial photography and basic physics, which was taught in order to give perspective on concepts like trajectory. During WWII, Garman was tasked with taking photography for the military but never housed any of the negatives.

Later in the interview Garman describes the setup that the photo service had at OSU. It included twenty two rooms and was quite expansive. For Garman, photography was both a passion and a duty. He touches on how he kept up with changes in photography which was largely experimentation and research.