John Garman Oral History Interview, October 11, 1979

JL: Well, I'm just going to fill in some of the spots that we that I didn't ask questions about as much as I wanted to last time. I was interested in the "watchers" during World War II that you mentioned, if you remember.

JG: Oh, yes.

JL: Were they just physics people that were "watchers"?

JG: No, they were just city people they a few were campus people here. Some were other people around the city. Just whoever had time and would put in. Usually a four-hour stretch, I think, at some time of the day or night and they just spent their time at these stations. Usually, let's see, one was on the roof of, what was it, oh, the physics building there, we moved into after we moved out of Apperson Hall, the one that's hooked onto the Mines Building.

JL: How were they organized?

JG: It was federal, so far as I know, and they had, well, they had a phone connection straight through so they could get in quick to the organizing headquarters. They, I don't think they had to go through many operators and when they got information on a plane approaching, why, they sent that in immediately and they had big charts of silhouettes of the various kinds of planes so to help them identify what kind of plane it was so well as they could and if anything of that kind wasn't meant to be in that area then the military went to work on it and found out who it was or sent people up to intercept or whatever. But, they watched very carefully. They were, well, I guess they were quite afraid of planes coming in from over the ocean. See, that's a big 00:02:00ocean the Pacific and [unintelligible] 40 miles from it and a plane can get here in just minutes and...

JL: So they had a structure up on the buildings that...

JG: Well, they had a place there with a roof over, I think, I saw one it had a kind of a big canvas tarp stretched to keep the rain off and keep some of the wind off. But, these people just sat there and watched and listened and if they detected any plane anywhere they immediately phoned in all they could tell about it. Where what direction it was, how far away it seemed to be, how fast it seemed to be going, what type of plane if they could get it and then the some branch of the military I don't know which it was coordinated all that. They had people at centers that kept track of everything in the air. Everything. 00:03:00Where it was going and how fast it was going and where it was right then it's altitude. All that stuff they kept track of so if anything they could spot it immediately.

JL: Did you ever watch?

JG: No, I wasn't on that. I was usually over here with some photographs. Evenings. No, I didn't get into that. I had enough to do anyway.

JL: Was anything ever spotted? Of...

JG: I don't know and, of course, they don't say. These people turn in their reports on everything they see and hear and that's all they ever know about it.

JL: So it was just citizens in the community then? Nobody with special skills or training then?

JG: No, oh, they gave them some time of preparation, yes. They had some briefing to know what to do and how to do it but that was, so far as I know, was 00:04:00done all up and down the coast if not all over the country hut it was a fairly a big undertaking and It was kept quiet. Whatever was spotted they didn't jump up and down and shout about It. They just made use of it as they could, to protect the country. That's what it was for.

JL: What other buildings had these watchers?

JG: I don't know. They wouldn't be much use in having some within a few miles of each other so probably the one on the roof there was probably the only one in around Corvallis. I expect there be in the other main cities and then on the strategic hilltops and where there were where they could make use of them. In fact, a quiet place away from town is good, with the noise level very low, you can hear a quiet plane quite a ways off. In your traffic, why, that 00:05:00wouldn't be so good.

JL: I wonder why they chose that particular building?

JG: Well, it probably it had a good flat roof. I used to go up there to do quite a little photography. It had a flat roof you could get out and walk around on. You could get up their easily. The elevator went to just one floor from the top. You could walk up some stairs to the rest of it. It was just convenience. I think anywhere on the campus would have done just as well except a lot of things, of course, they had to be able to get in the building at night and pass the watchman and so forth so it was all just worked out and very little were we ever told about it to be knew some of the people that were watching there.

JL: You mentioned last time that a special course for soldiers that you thought 00:06:00was aerial photography. What other courses were taught just because of soldiers being on campus, as a direct result?

JG: Oh, they were...lots of them were sent here just for regular studies. Mathematics and physics and chemistry and a few things to be of use to soldiers. I had courses in physics going on and the mechanics of it and enough to understand ballistics and the trajectory of bullets and all those things. They were all important.

JL: This was especially tailor made for soldiers though?

JG: Yes.

JL: Tell me...

JG: ...yes, they were courses for soldiers.

JL: . . .about that then.

JG: Well, just that the usual basic physics applies. Forces and velocities and distances and accelerations and resistance and so forth. All these different 00:07:00things that they are taught to physicists anyway. Most of that was of use to these people that were here as soldiers. The trouble was that they were drilling them pretty heavy and hard at the same time and they'd get over here pretty tired and a lot of them just fell asleep and there wasn't any other way to do it. It was after they'd spent most of the day drilling there and then came over here late afternoon, why, some of them were pretty worn out but then lots of people during the war got pretty worn out and that was. That's part of a war. You work hard.

JL: What kind of students were they? What kind of academically?

JG: Oh, just...

JL: Can you make a generalization?

JG: No, I can't. We had some that were very good students and some that weren't and some were in because, well, in lots of things in the military during 00:08:00the war they put people in this certain division or group or brigade or what because more people were needed there not because they fit it. (Chuckle) I remember the dean of engineering here once he the military people had come around and asked him for a list of his best students when they got were being drafted, you see, and all that, well, he gave them to him for a while and then he quit it and as he told them when. "When I find that my students who were straight A students in engineering here that you put on the jobs of K.P. and pulling up tumbleweeds and that I won't give you any more lists". He put it that way. (Chuckle)

JL: Oh, they took his best students and assigned them other tasks.

JG: No, they didn't bother to assign a lot of people according to where their talents fit. I guess you can't do that with a few million people. There 00:09:00isn't time and maybe there isn't inclination. My son-in-law had a lot of military here too and when he was in the military they he was in communications he was useful there and he did a lot of communications but all at once he shipped down to Texas or somewhere and got busy pulling up weeds and such stuff. That's a waste of ability and manpower but then a lot of that goes on and, I guess, there is no way to prevent it all.

JL: What research was being done in physics as a direct result of World War II?

JG: Well, now that wouldn't be mentioned to anybody except those that were doing it and they had to be classified and cleared. So you won't get any stuff like that.

JL: So you weren't involved in any kind of research because of the war?

JG: No, I'm clearance so I could make pictures for them and so forth but I wasn't doing research. I had enough to do.

JL: What kind of photography were you doing for them? You mentioned aerial photography and infra-red.

JG: Well, I seldom know what the job was that they were on when I made pictures for them but I've photographed some equipment that they were using for set ups to run certain kinds of research and tests but again I wasn't told that stuff. That's the way this country we usually complain that this country all our politicians blabbed loudly everything that's done or even thought about and then when the same thing comes up in Russia they never say a WORD! And we think sometimes it's kind of silly to spread everything we do and think and decide out 00:11:00to the general public where the enemy if any will pick it all up but the Russians never do that. In some ways they are a lot smarter than we are.

JL: Where did you take most of these photographs?

JG: In the labs. They'd bring in things they wanted pictures of. Of course, they made reports and sent out to their headquarters reports and illustrated bulletins and things like they were doing but that was their business not mine.

JL: They didn't have some kind of military personnel that took photographs? They came to you?

JG: Oh, yes they had military people that took photographs but then what they wanted were often things that weren't just what the average person would take. He'd get something out in the open, pick up a camera and push a button and 00:12:00that's the extent of military photography in a lot of times but lots of things that we could do that they didn't know much about.

JL: What did you have to do with Camp Adair? During the war?

JG: I didn't have any connection with it. I had a daughter that worked in the library out there evenings. After she went to school all day she went out and put in her evenings till ten o'clock out there in the library.

JL: Really.

JG: She was pretty busy.

JL: So you didn't have any connection, say, in photography with the camp?

JG: No. No, the anything in connection with building the camp would be just straight photography like you see in the newspapers and their own people handled it.

JL: And they didn't have any equipment out there or anything?

JG: Not that I know of.

JL: O.K.

JG: Then there's so much we don't know, you see, and I don't like to try to say. 00:13:00I wouldn't say they didn't have a lot of equipment or maybe great big complicated labs even but other outsiders weren't told those things.

JL: You didn't know personally.

JG: It wouldn't make sense to spread everything they do all over for others to pick up and find out about. No, I didn't teach aerial photography. I taught photography and basic understandings of how things work and what to do and so forth. These people that I had that were stationed out at the Corvallis Airport were platoon aerial mappers. That was their business. But, they were studying photography. I didn't teach mapping and I didn't teach how to handle a camera in a plane. Those things were part of their training.

JL: Oh. I'm sorry I thought that's what you said. So you were involved in the aerial mapping unit stationed at the airport then?

JG: Yes, they came in lots of them came in and we put on days here or afternoons 00:14:00or evenings on anything they were interested in or wanted to know about.

JL: What were they interested in then?

JG: How photography worked. You know if you want to chop a tree down you don't just pick up any ax you get a good ax and you sharpen it and then you learn how to use it. Then you can chop trees down well.

JL: So they hadn't had any experience with photography...

JG: Well, they had the usual training the military gave them but that's not basic understanding. That's training in what to do, I objected there when I went out to look over their setups. They had darkrooms there in which to work and they have a big box up here with a safe light on the front of it. A red safe light, you see., to light the room up and here they were working on the table and here was that darn thing up there just shining in their eyes. And why do you have it at all. Well, then I showed them my set up. My safe 00:15:00lights were up near the ceiling and they shown on a light ceiling and that was reflected down and we had a uniform illumination all over the room and even though it's very weak you can see and see what you're doing. That's photography! Not army training. That kind of fool set up I hope they got over it and that's the way it was at that time.

JL: What facilities did you have on campus here for your photography?

JG: I had 22 rooms in this building.

JL: 22 rooms?

JG: Different kinds for different purposes. Chem room, enlarging rooms of various sizes, film processing rooms, color film processing rooms, office, lecture rooms, supplies, various things. Yes, I laid out the layout here before they built this and we had a we were well equipped to keep certain things 00:16:00out of the hair of certain other things, so they didn't interfere with each other.

JL: This was in this building? Weniger Hall?

JG: Yes, but that, of course, wasn't at that time. Over in the other building there I had quite a nice layout, yes.

JL: This was Apperson Hall that you're talking about now?

JG: No, we had just a beginning layout in there. We moved this way, oh, what is that, what do they call that piece now that's along here and hooks on to the Mines Building?

JL: Dearborn?

JG: No, that's the other side of it. It's this is the other side of it.

JL: Shepard Hall? No.

JG: No, it's the other side of that.

JL: Apperson?

JG: It's where the where KOAC was in in upstairs.

JL: That's Shepard Hall.

JG: Shepard Hall. I don't seem to remember it by that name. I thought it was 00:17:00the physics building.

JL: Oh, Maybe it was.

JG: At least we had a good layout in there where you could go to certain places to do certain things.

JL: O.K. I'm confused...

JG: The equipment and lighting was all different then.

JL: I'm confused. You started off in doing your photography in the '20's when you were...

JG: In Apperson Hall.

JL: In Apperson Hall. O.K. Can you go through the evolution of your space where you had your photographic equipment from building to building? What facilities you had.

JG: Yes, well, we started over there. I had the ground floor of the southeast section there of the ground floor and then back in the building further I had three, I think three, darkrooms about a quarter of the size of this room.

JL: This was in Apperson Hall?

JG: Yes. In the '20's.

JL: Who was working with you then in Apperson Hall?

JG: Oh, what's the name? Uphoff was the profs, name that was running it when I started in there. He went east though and didn't come back and...

JL: That's right. So he's the one that started this the developed the dark rooms and the collecting equipment then.

JG: Yes, he got the first set up going there and then Ed Yunker worked with him quite a bit.

JL: In Apperson?

JG: Yes.

JL: In the '20's?

JG: And then when Uphoff left I was working with him and we two worked on it and 00:19:00then when we moved to the other building there there was indication that we would have more to do and more students so a bigger layout was authorized and that...

JL: Who authorized it?

JG: Oh, I don't know. What's done has to be cleared with the president's office and the deans and the department heads and everything. I don't know who did the authorization. Have no idea but if they showed the need and the ones higher up agreed that's there's the need then things are allowed. I suppose that's the way everything in the school is run.

JL: So you moved to the building next to Shepard Hall and Dearborn? Is that correct? Next?

JG: There is quite a section there called the shops and this building was built 00:20:00just west of the shops. I could show you on a map. Why don't we look at it after we're done here? Yes.

JL: So you moved your whole operation and what facilities did you have there then?

JG: Well, what that would mean we had rooms that were made light tight and we hung up various kinds of illuminations so we could have a bright red light or a dim red light or green light or whatever we needed for what we were doing. We had enlargers to do enlarging, we had contact printing equipment to do contact printing, we had tanks to develop films in and other stuff for other kinds of work, whatever we needed to do why we kind of set up and either bought or built 00:21:00what was needed to do it.

JL: What financial support did the administration give your photography?

JG: Oh, I don't know. The administration handled the money.

JL: Who did you go to for budgetary support then?

JG: The department head. From there they go on to where ever is needed.

JL: You mentioned last time that you built a lot of your equipment in the '20's and '30's.

JG: Yes, we built lots of stuff we needed.

JL: This was in the second structure that you were in. What...

JG: Yes, the...

JL: equipment exactly did you build?

JG: ...first one and the second one. Well, we built so called safe light. Lights so we could put up the illumination we needed. We built tables and that 00:22:00with waterproof covering and drains so you could handle liquids on them without sloping it on the floor or we built some printing equipment. We bought what we could. We built things we didn't have money enough to buy and when we needed to do something we tried to buy or build what was needed to do it with. Just like any department would anywhere. It's no different than anywhere else. We spent quite a little of our spare time nailing things together and so forth. I even remember folding up some large trays that were needed for some things out of just thin sheets of lead folding the edges up and crimping the corners and giving them a coat of black paint inside so the lead wouldn't affect the 00:23:00chemistry of the solutions. Such things as that. Yes, we did lots of making do and making but it wasn't spectacular. There was nothing spectacular about that stuff. You just get in and work and try to get the job done.

JL: How did you keep up with the new innovations in photography and how to build these things and this equipment?

JG: Well, how to build some equipment is more or less common sense. That isn't something you just go learn somewhere. I took machine shop and electrical shop and woodworking at the Benson Polytechnic when I went there as a high school and I took such equipment such courses here in this school. They had courses in the engineering school of woodworking and pattern making and foundry work. All 00:24:00those things I took a lot of that. I liked it and I hoped I would need it someday and I did.

JL: But specifically to the field of photography how did you keep up with the innovations?

JG: Well, like everyone else keeps up in their field. You study and you experiment.

JL: Can you tell me about some of those experiments?

JG: Well, I don't have much notes of things, nearly 60 years ago now but...

JL: In memory, yes?

JG: ...but if you wondered how certain new products would do under certain conditions you tried them and tried them out. We used lots of things for things they weren't designed to be used for at all. I'm using developers up there now that were designed and put out as finally as war surplus stuff that were put out to process especially high contrast copying materials. Well, I 00:25:00use some of those to make every enlargement you have there in that stack. They weren't designed for that but we try them out to see what they'll do and when you can get a big box of surplus stuff like that very reasonably where it would cost you a lot more to buy something that the manufacturer said, "It was just the right thing to use for this." Why, you saved that much and you can do more.

JL: Well, in the '20's and '30's what publications did you refer to in photography?

JG: Well, we had one monthly book called magazine called Camera. We had,,.

JL: In the '20's.

JG: Yes, we had several others and we had, oh, house organs from Eastman and Dupont and several other of the manufacturers of photographic supplies and 00:26:00equipment. Yes, so.

JL: You mentioned last time that you did a lot of experiments and discovered different ways of doing photographic process the photographic process. What significant discoveries did you make?

JG: Well, ways in which we could do a job better or easier or cheaper.

JL: What specifically? Can you think of anything?

JG: Well, I was just thinking of carbon printing. There's a way of making pictures, nice pictures for exhibits, they're usually some carbon prints and photographic exhibits that you see around even now although the process is largely out of use. But, at that time how to sensitize the materials and get 00:27:00them dry without horrible curling and so forth and how to use them. The information available was pretty sketchy and we spent lots of time experimenting. How can you dry this stuff without it curling so badly you can't use it and how long can you keep it after sensitizing it before you have to use it or throw it away. Lots of such things come up. I doubt that it's of much technical interest to anyone but we spent lots of time finding out those things.

JL: You're talking about Ed. Younger and you?

JG: Well, he worked in photography quite a bit of his time. I was usually in it full time. He was usually in it part time.

JL: So when you say we then who are you referring to?

JG: Often to him and then I had various student help that I could put on doing 00:28:00somethings and finding out they worked and on handling some lab sections. It got to where we usually had several students, often graduate students, that were doing some of the things that we could turn over to them.

JL: So you developed carbon printing? Is that what your saying?

JG: No, carbon printing was developed back in about the 1880's.

JL: But, you did what then?

JG: We tried as we did with lots of things to make the job work better and work easier and work cheaper. That's where we put in lots of time. We weren't after publishing anything. That's leave that to these great researchers who 00:29:00have titles after their names. We weren't in that much.

JL: So you didn't ever write up any of your processes in publications then?

JG: Only for student use. We worked things into our courses that we found out.

JL: You mentioned last time also that you went out with J.B. Horner quite a few times to take photographs.

JG: Yes.

JL: And you mentioned that he'd interview the people around in an area. I was wondering if you can remember. What exactly was he asking about?

JG: He went out to talk not to ask where he went out to where there was work going on and digging up places where there were relics where there had been a 00:30:00camp or something or where were Indian mounds he usually when I went with him he usually went out to talk to people about that business of finding out how the Indians lived in the old days and so forth.

JL: He wasn't asking about it?

JG: Well, he asked questions like any people in the college here. You ask questions anytime you can. You don't learn much by telling people things. You learn by asking.

JL: Was he asking towards writing a publication or...

JG: Yes, he wrote quite a few books and publications and he was always asking when he ran across somebody that knew something he hadn't found out he questioned them and put it down. Yes, that's the way we get information together.

JL: Were you ever with him when he was interviewing these people?

JG: Oh, just standing around talking. I was usually busy doing what I had to do.

JL: What did he want you to take photographs of exactly?

JG: Some Indian mounds. Some he hadn't cut into yet others I think he intended to open up and places where they had discovered camps had been at some earlier time and were busy digging up and sifting all the soil through screens, you know, to pick out all the tiny little things. They'd throw out all the little rocks and finally find pieces of bone or cut up stone or something with carving on it or whatever but there is a lot of that done.

JL: What were you taking pictures of then during this period?

JG: What was going on.

JL: What was going on. The process.

JG: Where they were digging up and how they were doing it and what they were finding and so forth and what they were going to do. I think he was probably quite limited in what they'd let him do in digging into Indian mounds but there 00:32:00were some places so far as I know that he was allowed to dig in and bring out remains. You know they buried their dead in some of these mounds. They built over them and usually to keep them supplied in the happy hunting grounds all these people had religions why they put the various things they had used there equipment and articles they had made and used and that in with them so they'd have them at a later date in the next world. All those things.

JL: How did you know that he was limited in digging up these mounds? What made you think that?

JG: Well, I've read in various places that there's had to quite a bit had to be done to keep just anyone around from digging into all ancient material and destroying it before it could be recorded properly. I was out on Menlos Island 00:33:00in the Columbia up there before they got Bonneville Dam built. That flooded out the island and on that the Indians had buried their dead from that area for many years and the weather had washed away soil and so forth and there were just lots of graves exposed... In fact people had just piled up skulls. I've seen skulls there piled up there this high. Just in piles. And...

JL: A couple of feet high.

JG: Yes.

JL: How did you happen to be on Menlos Island?

JG: Oh, I was up visiting a friend of mine in The Dalles and he took mining here. He was one of the last ones to study mining here and he was, oh, kind of surveyor and snow surveyor man of various things in that area and we just got a 00:34:00rowboat and some friends of his was there and rowed over to the island to take a look. I don't know whether we were supposed to go over there or not. I think the Indians didn't want other people to go to their island but, at least, that's all under water now.

JL: When was that? When did you go over there?

JG: Oh, that must have been about 1920 or '21. Along in there?

JL: Did you take pictures there when you went?

JG: Trying to recall. I think I took two or three pictures there that showed some skulls and parts of graves and I may have them around. I'll have to look for that. Maybe I can dig them up for you and you could have them to file.

JL: Gosh anything. That would be terrific.

JG: Yes, I'll take a look. I maybe able to find those.

JL: O.K.

JG: Here I have color slides and up in those boxes those on that row through four, six, eight, ten, there are 299 in each of those boxes and but I have things pretty well charted so I can find them when needed and, of course, I have far more than that in black and white negatives but they are mostly at home but I'll dig in and see what I can find.

JL: All right. Good. You were mentioning last time that you would go out with the entomology people to LaComb and photograph strawberry pests or can you tell me how you went about doing that?

JG: Oh, not very well, no. They'd want I'd like a picture of this plant and let's make these certain leaves show because they show the insect damage we're 00:36:00interested in. So we'd take a picture to show those things. There's not much we can do as to anything spectacular or anything that would mean much to anyone but the entomologist.

JL: Why were you always maybe not always but tell me why you were chosen to go out with these people and take photographs like Horner, the entomology people...

JG: Because I was running this photographic service which we started up back in the 20's and we were taking pictures of most everything on the campus where pictures were needed. Oh, the usual pictures of groups and banquets and that the downtown commercial people took. But, for pictures of insect damage and repair of broken bones and the effects of bacteria and how penicillin stopped the growth of eschericha coli and a little ring around the spot of penicillin and 00:37:00all such things they want for their publications and I made lots of that stuff. Yes, when penicillin first came out and into use the biology people were very interested in it and they ran lots of tests of under different conditions and to find what they would kill and what they wouldn't and so forth and I was busy working on pictures. Lots of those things.

JL: Why were you tell me why photography started in physics rather than say in journalism or art?

JG: Because physics saw the need of photography in other than art. Everywhere else it seems to get settled in art and all you do is make great pictures of piles of things and somebody says, "Well, who did that?" "Oh, this is a great person. That's a wonderful picture." If they didn't see the title why, of 00:38:00course, they couldn't tell it was wonderful. I didn't like that stuff and I haven't followed it up. I haven't done much of anything in it. I've tried to do technical things which were useful.

JL: Was it because of your interest you alone that the photo service started in physics then?

JG: Well, I was just about at the start of it. Whether Yunker and Uphoff might have had some of that going pictures for different departments earlier but I don't recall much back that far but at least after I'd been there a few years we were taking pictures for botany and station agents around the different counties 00:39:00here and such things the engineers were, well, they were busy breaking steel pieces that finally fatigued and failed from stress and so forth and we photographed the results for their reports and bulletins. A liberty ship in Portland was up in the harbor there in the winter and it cracked and broken practically in two and a howl went up right away in journalism and, oh, that was poor steel made during the war. Well, Sam Graf was head of mechanical engineering and he got sections of that steel and showed that although it wasn't wonderful steel it filled the needed requirements and we simmered it down to where while we found that the outside of the hall was covered with ice they had 00:40:00a crew inside busy steam cleaning some of the inside of it and that temperature difference was what pushed it apart. So, that was usual for their reports.

JL: When was this done?

JG: Oh, heavens I don't know. Must have been in the '30's or '40's.

JL: I wanted to ask so because of you individually then photography the photo service on campus was started in physics and not someplace else. I mean it was you as the individual?

JG: I liked photography. I did got a little practice with some friends in the military back in about 1918 and I liked photography and when I saw the river courses here when I got in school here why I took what was being offered and I 00:41:00liked it so I stayed with it.

JL: So if you hadn't been in physics then it wouldn't it might not have started in the photo service might not have started in physics? Can you answer yes or no?

JG: I'm not sure of that. I can't say for sure but Ed Yunger was quite interested in it too at that time and he I think he considered spending his life in photography.

JL: So the two of you then? Without you two then it wouldn't have started in physics.

JG: I don't believe it would.

JL: That's quite admirable.

JG: When he went to California and did graduate work for his doctor degree he got into other lines of physics in that so he didn't come back to photography but I stayed with photography. I liked it and figured I might as well be doing that as other things.

JL: You're to be admired for starting such an important aspect of the university.

JG: Well, it's been pretty useful and I think they're bulletins and illustrations here will stack up with anybody's as to quality of the pictures and how well they show what needs to be shown...

JL: Was it...

JG: Go ahead.

JL: Was it always called photo service?

JG: Yes. Yes, it was started as a service to the campus.

JL: I wanted to ask what effect did color photography have on your photo service on campus?

JG: Well, there wasn't much color photography being done in photo service actually, when I left it here but earlier we were making color pictures. Gee, whiz I remember photographing some nice china pheasants in all their bright 00:43:00colors and tulips. Bright colored tulips with that tulip mosaic disease showing in the pattern and colors in them. Back in the '20's. Yes, we had ways of making color pictures back in the early days there that were...

JL: Can you tell me about that?

JG: Yes, we had ways of making that were much simpler to do than the present ones but at the same time they didn't get as good a picture to end up with as they get now but then that's been due to these big companies spending many millions right along in research, over many, many years.

JL: Well, tell me how you make color photography in those early days?

JG: Well, we used what were called Lumiere Autochrome plates, glass plates with colored materials and layers on them. They were made in France, I guess, earlier. They got to making some over here. The Dufay color processes came into use over here. Instead of color particles they were pretty complicated. They died a colored layer with a color then they ruled it with very fine lines of a mixture of a bleach that bleached that color and put in a colored line and then they cross ruled it with a third color which bleached the other two and put so it ended up with little squares of colored material just about as small as could be seen and then the photographic layers were put over that. It was complicated, yes. But the processing was simple. After you made one you walked 00:45:00in a dark room and in ten minutes you had color picture. You should see all the preparations they make now to make color pictures.

JL: What were the disadvantages to it?

JG: Well, they were fairly slow. It took bright light and long exposures and it took, you generally made rather large ones because you couldn't get good enough quality to show things very, very small and good enough. You see, the sharper pictures you can make the smaller you can make them and still show what needs to be shown and that's been greatly improved in the past. I have a few old colored pictures around I'd like to leave somewhere because some of those processes and materials aren't available any more. And whether you people want them or not why you'd better...

JL: Yes, we would.

JG: ...find out. ...

JL: Yes.

JG: I think I even have some old tintypes and daguerreotypes around and if you people are interested I'll...

JL: Yes.

JG: ... dig it up and get it together because...

JL: Yes very much we are interested.

JG: ...that just gets just handled from some person to another and laid on a shelf and finally thrown out you know. Well, they can't be duplicated any more some of those old ones...

JL: Right.

JG: ...and when someone gets to studying and investigating, why, to be able to refer to them is to is good.

JL: Yes. We are very interested. I can say that without reservation. Where did you what did you take your color these color prints of what did you take? What were you experimenting on?

JG: Well, in the early days you usually took them of brightly colored things because they could give colors. (Chuckle) But, plants and usually landscapes 00:47:00and scenes were common ones. But, I'll dig up some of my old ones there of what I can find and that I remember making some of some of the floats in the Portland Rose Parades, back, oh, in the '30's.

JL: Oh, terrific.

JG: So, we'll see what we can dig up. I think we can find you something worth putting in a box.

JL: Oh, terrific. What special equipment did you need for this Lumiere Autochrome process?

JG: Nothing except film holders that would hold glass plates. You made most pictures on glass plates back in those days. Let's see, do I have right here a carefully before they built KOAC towers out there to be able to beam the energy 00:48:00in the directions they wanted it. They didn't want to send most of it in directions that interfered with other stations.

JL: Tell me again how it was done. How he tested this? This is Dr. Anderson did you say?

JG: Yes. Dr. W.B. Anderson who was head of physics department at that time.

JL: What would he do? Go ahead.

JG: He just moved those funnels, tin funnels, up and down in the water to make sets of waves. Of course, he did it steadily so then [unintelligible] sets of waves but from two sources, you see, at a certain place you'd get the crest of both waves at the same time and you'd get big waves. At other places the crest of one set of waves gets there just as the trough of the other set gets there and you don't get waves. Now, that applies just as well in radio and in light as it does in water waves and...

JL: This was tested...

JG: ...that's just part of physics to understand wave motion and wave interference. Yes, I made lots of pictures on glass plates in those days.

JL: When was this taken? This one you were talking about.

JG: That one about, well, it must have been in the middle '20's. 1923, '24 or '25.

JL: And this was common for you to go out and take pictures of people doing experiments then?

JG: Yes.

JL: Like this Dr. Anderson's?

JG: Yes. I went lots of times out to where they were running experimental plots. They would have a little rectangle here, you know, and one here and one here on which everything was the same except they'd use a different kind of fertilizer or a different amount of fertilizer or different watering and so forth and to show the differences between them. Was part of showing what they were accomplishing. No, I did lots of that. That's just the way this world has improved right along.

JL: When did you go to just taking paper photography?

JG: Well, we never used...

JL: To quit using glass plates.

JG: Well, we used films as you have in the bundles there. Oh, there were lots of films in use even before the 1920's there but the, well, sad to say a lot of the film base, celluloid of various types, and stuff wasn't adequate to the occasion. You see celluloid was used for film for the film base on the photographic layers you spread on it and celluloid Is as brittle as glass naturally and they incorporated various things in it. Castor oil was one good one to make it more limp and flexible so it didn't break every time you bent it a little bit and, oh, various things. That was a lot of work was done on trying to make celluloid that would remain flexible over the years. Well, they 00:51:00weren't always success-full and I've thrown away, oh, just any number of film negatives that would just snap if you bent them a little bit. They were just went to pieces but various chemicals helped that. Finally, some of the synthetic plastics were have replaced celluloid for all those uses because they make some now which are more limp and more flexible and are permanent. When did the photo service on campus quit using glass negatives then? Glass plates. Oh, I don't know if they have ever quit using them. You see, glass will lie flatter than any flexible film and if you must have that whole surface just in a certain place you don't bother much with flexible films that bow in a little and out a little. In astronomy, they use very little film. They use 00:52:00glass plates for nearly all astronomical photographs for that reason. They want it flat and right there and not here and here and buckled and you can't hold films flat enough in lots of uses.

JL: So you continued making glass plates for most of the time you were involved in the photo service then?

JG: Well, no I wouldn't say that but for lots of uses they are still the only thing that will do the job but for many things or the exact flatness and rigidity is not as important why they have been replaced by other things that are cheaper and easier to handle. Handling glass plates like that in the dark in various solutions is not a simple thing.

JL: I imagine.

JG: But, these films are quite different in that respect. Yes, the earlier 00:53:00color pictures were made on glass plates.

JL: What happened to all these glass plates? Color and black and white.

JG: Oh, I suppose when their usefulness is over they are thrown out.

JL: You threw out your glass plates? (Chuckle) Sure would be a treasure now.

JG: In photo service I never kept other peoples pictures. I had some trouble over that a time or two. Somebody would claim you lost my pictures. No, I never kept other peoples pictures. We sent their negatives right along with the prints made from them and then if they got lost they had to blame themselves. I've been into that a time or two so I kept no pictures belonging to other people. No, botany pictures went to botany and engineering pictures went to engineering and so forth.

JL: You taught photography to students then starting in the '20's then? Is that correct?

JG: Yes.

JL: And then on from there. Did you teach students the color photography and...

JG: Not early in the game there. We had some beginning students who wanted to know how photography worked and we put on beginning courses for people to get to understand photographic processes. Later as the need came up we added more advanced courses that added color to it. That's, of course, all you need to know to make pictures of somebody now is buy this film, put it in this camera, hold it up and push a button. That's what 99 people out of 100 do now. If you get into more serious things though and make use of it, why, you need to know more about the processes. Also, processes are being continually changed 00:55:00and improved and if you don't have a basic understanding of them the first change licks you. So, we found it advisable to teach people basic understandings of photography. Not, just training.

JL: How did you do that?

JG: Well, how do you...

JL: Do you have them do projects?

JG: Yes, have them do things.

JL: Like what?

JG: Well, after giving lectures we'd have them I'd have them go out and take a roll of pictures of different types and different pictures are taken under different conditions and in different ways and watching out for certain things that might be wrong and certain things you'd better get right and we'd have them do the things and then come in and process their films. Put them through the needed solutions and end up with a roll of pictures from which they made what we 00:56:00thought they ought to make from them to teach them about making prints and enlargements.

JL: Whose cameras did they use?

JG: Well, a lot of them had better cameras than the department had, if they had more money to spend.

JL: This was in the '20's and '30's?

JG: Yes. I've always had students that had more money than we had to spend. Always have since. People come in here with $1,000.00 or $1,200.00 cameras. We never hoped to have one and didn't care much about anyway because to be able to brag that you have a .very expensive camera isn't much educationally. But, we had equipment which did the job and again.

JL: What kind of equipment? What kind of cameras did the university have for the students?

JG: Well, roll film cameras sold for largely for them. Also, view cameras. 00:57:00Here's a type of camera I've had lots of students out using. That's a view camera, so called. Designed originally for making views. Pictures of landscapes and scenes and mountains and buildings and trees and so forth. That you put on a stand of some kind to hold it still while you look at the picture on the back of it and arrange things and get just the right place and just high enough and just enough screening from stray light and so forth.

JL: This makes, a 4' by 5' negatives?

JG: Yes, that makes 4' by 5' ones.

JL: This is the kind of camera the college had for the students to use?

JG: That's one kind of camera the college had. Suppose you were teaching auto mechanics. Would you have one kind of automobile?

JL: Depends on how much money you had, I imagine. How much support you had.

JG: Yes, we had mostly the student work was done for many years with small sort of pocket cameras. They weren't, well, they wouldn't go in anything but a big coat pocket. The kind people could carry around. These would be useless to the average person because if you want a picture of something that is going on, well, the darn thing is home, you know. You don't just carry it with you all the time. You wouldn't lug a thing like that around unless you especially intended to use it. Then you never get the interesting things that happen all at once, you see.

JL: This is a Wollensak camera?

JG: No.

JL: Do you know what it's called?

JG: No, that's the name of the manufacturer that made the lens.

JL: What's the type of...

JG: Well, let's see if it's on here somewhere.

JL: What period of time was this used, too?

JG: Burke and James. It's a Burke and James camera. That is the big photographic supply house which is more or less a mail order house like Sears.

JL: When did you when period of time was this camera used then? It's still used I imagine.

JG: Oh, we probably bought it around 1950 or even a little later.

JL: Well, before that time what did the students use?

JG: Well, we had some earlier models. They were mostly simpler and somewhat different designs. I could show you various, cameras but what would it mean unless you know cameras I don't think just to look at a different model of 01:00:00camera would mean much.

JL: I'm interested in what type of camera you used the students at the institution used.

JG: Well, let's go up and look at some things then. Just talking doesn't tell you much about them.

JL: Well, why don't we wait until after we're done. What specific projects did you have them do? Did you have them do like the year book? Involved in that or...

JG: No, we're not interested in books. We're teaching photography and photography isn't books. We had them do things that taught them how photography works and how to use it. The publication department would teach them about books.

JL: Someone described you as being a very strict teacher and you had the students trembling on the edge of their seats, in fact. Why is that? What you very rigorous, I understand.

JG: Well, I like to have people do a good job and do some learning and I've received some interesting letters from some that have later, too, and they were glad that they did get some practice under someone that had them work and not just play along and pass them anyway as so many do. You know to be popular and get one of these prizes for the most popular teacher, why, you've got to be a good fellow and you couldn't stop anyone somewhere because they hadn't done anything up to date. No, I was never interested in much of that. If they want to learn I had, as I told them at the start of the term, we have quite a bit here for you. If you want it we'll lay it out for you. We won't attempt to learn you. You'll have to do that yourself well just teach you. That's the 01:02:00way I put it to them generally. Yes, I've had lots of students quit because they have to get in and do something. They couldn't just play their way through but then the school kicks out lots of them, too. It isn't just...

JL: What facilities did you have for the students in the way of developing?

JG: Well, you don't need much in those lines. Some trays or in some cases some small deep tanks, deep enough so you can unroll a film this long and hang it down in the tank.

JL: I guess I'm talking specifically about in the '20's and '30's.

JG: Same thing as now.

JL: O.K.

JG: Just that. We have lots, of small shallow trays in which we can put things and small amounts of solutions. Lots of solutions used in photography don't 01:03:00keep well. You mix them up and use them and throw them away. Then when you need some more you mix up some more. They they're some more permanent solutions that you can mix up and keep on hand for years, but generally not. You make up a bottle and put them on a shelf and you pour out some and use it and throw it away and when you're used it up why you make another bottle full. Lots stuff is done that way.

JL: In the '20's had you conceptualized a department that's that's as extensive as the photo service is today?

JG: No, naturally we didn't know what was going to be new in photography and what was coming out and what the needs would be. No, like other departments 01:04:00that just develops to fill the needs and the possible future needs but you can't predict just what they'll be. You guess as well as you can and go ahead as everyone else does. Yes, we try to be ready if needs come up. Lots of things were done, I think, because we got to doing them here.

JL: Like what?

JG: There was no one on the campus making infra-red pictures where infra-red did the best job.

JL: Tell me about that. How did that evolve?

JG: Well, we see by a light by certain wavelengths. If the wave length is longer or shorter than our eye will detect it's all just dark so far as we're concerned, if the film can still record it why you can still take pictures 01:05:00with it and in so doing you can often show what couldn't be shown by just visible light. There's lots of cases where we photographed, oh, leaves of plants that showed begun to show slight signs of disease by infra-red or ultra violet because it would show in it in ultra violet maybe whereas by visible light and looking at it you still couldn't see any change.

JL: So, how did you get involved in the infra-red process then?

JG: It's just part of photography when the literature commenced to mention it and infra-red sensitive material became available on the market, why, we got them and used them.

JL: When was this?

JG: Oh, that didn't happen all at once any more than anything else did. But, in the '20's there were there was some use of infra-red being made. Not much. 01:06:00I when I started in here photography was done almost entirely by the red, green and blue in daylight. The orange and red just didn't record on most of the films available at that time films and plates. Pretty soon they were available so we got to using them. One big advantage of the infra red is it penetrates the atmosphere better than the shorter wave lengths and you can see things off in the distance better than you can by visible light and you can photograph them better and they look plainer and closer and sharper and so forth so where you want pictures of distant things why the infra red is often the 01:07:00better or the only way of showing what you want to show about it. Odd thing too in infra-red pictures all green materials containing chlorophyll show up white and I made a picture in, I think, it was on the 23rd of July one year of Marys Peak from up on the roof here with a long camera stretched out long you know to get it big enough of small things... (Demonstrates how long)

JL: That's a couple feet.

JG: ...yes, (Chuckle)

JL: Couple of feet long camera?

JG:...and made (Chuckle) by infra-red, why, there were in the valleys there several little valleys on the peak it was all white and it looked just like it did after it snowed and then the sun melted off the snow on the high parts and left the snow in the valleys but it wasn't snow it was green grass. Things 01:08:00like that came up.

JL: So you were continually experimenting? You and Ed Yunker?

JG: I like to experiment. Yes, we liked to experiment and we experimented. Yes.

JL: And you brought all these innovations to the photo service? How did...

JG: Yes. Whatever we...

JL: ...I...

JG: ...found out that could be of use we liked to see it used. That's the way we put it.

JL: Seems to me the equipment that you use in these processes were very would be expensive.

JG: Well, that's because you don't know photography, see. (Chuckle)

JL: (Chuckle)

JG: So don't make such surmises.

JL: All right.

JG: Let somebody else do that. (Chuckle)

JL: Well, I know like enlargers cost $200.00 or $300.00 alone and other cameras...

JG: Oh, you can get...

JL: ...cost...

JG: ...an enlarger for $40.00 and less. And you can get them for $1,000.00 and more, depending on what you need and what you want to do and how easily you're 01:09:00pried loose from money. They whatever you might want to spend money on you bet they'll have it on the shelf ready to sell it to you in photography same as in everything else.

JL: So you kept down the cost by utilizing equipment that wasn't necessarily made for that specific task?

JG: Yes, often you don't need special equipment to do a certain thing and often you can improvise from what you already have to do things that other people aren't doing. I was one of the first ones around here to start up making copies and then enlargements in black and white from color pictures. There's one on the wall there, my son-in-law and his oldest daughter. That's over in 01:10:00Kinshasa in near Kinshasa in Zaire. He's an engineer over there at that time and they were building power lines.

JL: So you were the first one to do what then in Corvallis?

JG: I was one of the first ones to make copies and black and white enlargements from color pictures. They finally got to doing it downtown. Of course, there is money in it so naturally they'd take it up. They could charge a big price for that, you see, because no one else was doing it much.

JL: How did you happen to do that?

JG: Oh, I can't say. I'd just...

JL: For no specific purpose then?

JG: No, I'd like to find out how would this work. Let's try this? Yes, he sent me over a colored negative of that picture. His, I don't know whether my daughter took that one or whether somebody out on the job took it but at least 01:11:00he sent me that negative. See that would cost you quite a bit to get a color enlargement that size made.

JL: That's true.

JG: So, I don't do much in color printing. It takes a long time to get set up and ready for it. There's several very critical steps. You're working so much of the time in total darkness and the solutions are expensive and don't last long. So I confined my time largely to making the original exposures and let the machine operated processes do that. They put a when you send your color films in they poke the end in a slot and it's wound on into a process machine and comes out the other end finished and dry. I don't care to spend much of my time on that except when they won't make a good print of them I like to do it myself. You see, if you take a flash picture at a feed, for instance, we went down to my daughters place down in Menlo Park for Thanksgiving and 01:12:00there's eight or nine around the table and somebody is pretty close to the camera and some others are pretty far away. So in the resulting picture with a flash on the camera, why, the near pictures are way too light and the far people are way too dark and they won't do anything about that in printing. I can arrange in printing to give enough more exposure to the near ones to darken them down enough to match the far ones, you see. Dodging is a part of photography but these pictures and they haven't time to bother you send in from the thousands of little color films that go in they don't do that they just run them through some machine and it does it. It can't think with it anyway. But, if I want a good job I'll make it myself.

JL: Was there co-operation between the journalism department the 01:13:00photojournalists and you

the art department at all when you were involved in the photo service on campus?

JG: Yes. John Burtner in those early days for many years John Burtner took the journalists pictures and he processed them and printed them and all that in our labs and sometimes when there was a pretty important basketball game on in the evening, why, he got them to bring down and set up in our labs the necessary material to take his pictures and put them out on the wire to the west so they could be in next day's papers. They brought that tela equipment down and made, yes, he rushed back from the game, processed some films and while they were still wet he'd run off some prints for them, no time to dry them and get them on the machine there and it would go around and slide along here and in just a few 01:14:00minutes why Los Angeles and San Francisco and Seattle and Denver everyone had them to put in their paper the next day.

JL: So, there was co-operation then?

JG: Oh, yes. Yes. We all worked together.

JL: I see.

JG: Yes, John Burtner was their photographer for many years there that took lots of pictures for the bulletins and news and sports and lots of those. That he took generally with a big camera, not this big, but usually a pretty big one and a flash outfit on it. He did lots of that. We did the more technical stuff that you did more slowly and carefully. Different kinds of work.

JL: Did he get started when was photo journalism started then?

JG: I don't know. You'll have to talk to them.

JL: Did you associate with them in the '20's then?

JG: I don't remember any photo journalism in the '20's.

JL: O.K. Then it was after the '20's? O.K.

JG: Yes. They started putting on their own courses for their own people. You see, a question always comes up should botany teach botany photography to botanists or should photography teach photography to botanists. That's a type of basic question that's always up.

JL: What do you think?

JG: I don't think there is any one answer to it. Botany had Frank McCullock over there for many years making their nicer pictures and, of course, he was, I think, Federally paid and so he just spent all day if he wanted make getting a picture JUST the way he wanted of a certain leaf with a certain disease on it. We couldn't. We had a lot of work to do, but depending on circumstances and 01:16:00what's available, why, there are certain ways to do the job best.

JL: Did you do photography for community members or was it just campus work that you were involved in?

JG: It was campus. I was paid by the physics department to teach photography and I put my spare time in on photography also and that was campus. Oh. I have made group pictures, a few times for some of the honor societies when they met and that just kind of to he doing and find out more about group pictures of people. But, our work was confined to campus. No, if we took pictures off the campus here, gee, how the downtown photographers would howl. As we used to 01:17:00say, "Howell and Ball'.' Two studios Ball Studios and Howell Studios would 'bawl and howl' about it. (Chuckle) No...

JL: Why was there that feeling of...

JG: ...why they wanted the business. They were entitled to the business. We mustn't touch anything and, of course, we weren't a business here. This isn't a commercial establishment that goes out and makes pictures for various people not connected with the campus. That wasn't our business at all and we knew it. But, that does come up many times. Oh, yes, I've been accused of taking all kind of pictures around of different things off the campus and I had to be able to deny that I did any such or I'd have been in hot water.

JL: In the field of photography I'm going to ask maybe a difficult question. What were some of the most in the field of photography here on campus what were some of the most memorable experiments or experiences that you can think of?

JG: Well, making the first color processes work, I think, would be one early interesting one. When you end up with a nice color picture and had never made one before and nobody else around had been making them either you're kind of proud of yourself.

JL: You did this when you were a student didn't you? In the '20's. Early '20's.

JG: Not colored pictures, no. I got into that more after I got to teaching photography here.

JL: In the '20's? Late '20's then?

JG: Yes, well, I started teaching in 1923. That's not the late '20's, Now 01:19:00it's on the modern cameras if you want a picture of something that moves, why, you try to get it just right and then you push a button here and a flash goes off and the shutter opens and closes in a 100th of a second or less and you get just what you want there with no trouble. In the old days you had to you used a cable release here, let's see, what's it set on (Pause) bulb. Now you get everything all ready and pull the slide out in front of the frame and when you 01:20:00open the shutter, why, light could get in and when you closed it, why, it was through and you had to, what's happened here? No, that's all right. So, we'd have a some flash powder and some way of firing it in one hand and we'd have ahold of the cable with the other and we'd hold it up and watch when things are about right, one open the shutter, two shoot the flash, three close the shutter as fast as we could. It was crude but we got some pictures we couldn't get any other way. Later, why, one of the fellows here fixed up a rubber bulb with a hose and a little plunger in a cylinder and a little hole in the side and when he squeezed the bulb that pushed the plunger out and opened the shutter and the 01:21:00air that came out the side in another tube fired the flash, so, one squeeze and you've got your picture. Of course, it wasn't as fast as present ones but that was the first one I know of being taken around?

JL: Who did that?

JG: Ed Yunker and I laid that picture on his desk just two months ago. (Chuckle)

JL: The first picture he took?

JG: Pulled it out of the files. We worked on it together and...

JL: What was it?

JG: A little doggie. We had a little doggie came around and we'd put it up on a stand in the studio there and aimed the cameras and lights on it and put up a background and reflectors and things. Yes, those things were a lot of fun.

JL: Do you remember approximately what time this was? What year this was?

JG: Oh, I suppose 1924, '25.

JL: Oh, how exciting!

JG: But that's gotten now into mass production of millions of such outfits which 01:22:00are simple and easy and quick to use. Nowadays when you use such equipment you open the shutter for maybe only a 100th of a second and fire that flash during the time t# the shutter is open.

JL: Where do you think photography is going? Is headed?

JG: Oh, I don't know.

JL: What do you think will can you make any predictions?

JG: I can't make much no. The sometimes we make predictions that don't work out. We used to think there would be more stereo photography, whereas, you looked at one picture with one eye and a different picture with the other eye actually and they were taken that way. Sometimes we made a picture with the camera there and then we slide it over here and made another one. Then we arranged so that you looked at one of those with one eye and the other one with 01:23:00the other eye. Seeing what you would see if you had one eye here and one eye here, you see? The depth the difference in distance separation between things showed up plainly in those cases. They make that stuff up now for the little kids. You see those in the markets there with a little outfit you hold in front of your eye and put in a disc with little pairs of pictures opposite each other all the way around. In the toy department they have lots of that stuff and you can see instantly when you look at it that something is close and something is farther. When you look at that you can't tell that. You look at the same thing with both eyes. Stereo photography.

JL: In the first days that you were interested in photography were there any kind of organizations either locally or nationally that you participated in?

JG: Oh, yes the P.I.P.A. The Pacific International, Photography Association, 01:24:00Photographer's Association, was one I joined along in the '20's. We'd have conventions along in the summer the different places. I went up to Vancouver, B.C. for summer meetings there at different times. They met in Portland. They met in San Francisco. They met in different places hut that was soon an association of the people who were making big money in photography and, of course, it was put on for them.

JL: So but in the early days it was for people like you?

JG: For the smaller businesses, yes, as you might put it.

JL: What kind of programs did they put on or...

JG: Well, they put on some training in photography. How to do a good job 01:25:00because so many photographers back in those days and even in the present days are pretty good business people and not especially good at photography. But, if they are good business people they get the business, and you know, photographers hand out and sell their pictures to people that don't know much photography. Just like a dentist could do a poor job and so what the one he does it for doesn't know it. He doesn't know dentistry. It's been the same in photography. I've seen some awfully poor jobs done. Even in this town here and blamed on, well, some factory defects in that materials we used and such stuff as that and I wasn't very popular when I proposed that that wasn't so.

JL: Well, what were some can you remember some of the programs that they put on in these conferences when it was specifically for small businessmen?

JG: Oh, yes, they had they were introducing, in those days, banquet cameras. There were two sizes. There were great big things. Some made pictures 7" by 17". Others made still bigger ones. 12" wide, er inches high and 20" long. 12 by 20's They'd get up on a stand or up a big ladder or something and photograph a big hall full of 500 people and that. They'd set up flashes all around here and there and arrange people to shoot them all while they held the shutter open on bulb and finally that simmered down to where those trig ones weren't used any more. It was cheaper and easier to make smaller glass plate negatives. Those 12 by 20 were pretty big and heavy and easy to break but those things they demonstrated at most of those conventions. There were 01:27:00demonstrations in portraiture. How to set up some good portraiture lighting so you got a good looking picture of somebody. Now the stuff they print in the newspapers is mostly something in which somebody fired a flash right straight in front of a person and the lighting is horrible. That's all you can say for it.

JL: You had never seen one of these banquet cameras before you went to this convention?

JG: Well, we didn't have $1,500.00 to buy a banquet camera. It would be of no use to us. What would we do with it?

JL: What I had understood that it was used in town by a studio.

JG: Yes, sometime quite a bit later than that one of the outfits had a 7 x 17 at least but that stuff was put on mainly in the bigger cities you see where big conventions are held. In fact, some photographers spend their full time 01:28:00photographing conventions in San Francisco and Chicago and so forth. That's their business and there is lots of money in it.

JL: Which conventions did you go to then in the '20's?

JG: Well, Pacific International Photographer's Association was the outfit I belonged to at that time.

JL: And that was in Portland that you went to these conventions and saw the banquet camera?

JG: Oh, not necessarily Portland. They met in Seattle. They met in Vancouver. I went to those meetings...

JL: Oh, you went...

JG: ...I never went to conventions where they ganged up in San Francisco or Los Angeles. I never had the money for that. Photographers were making at that time $25,000.00 and $50,000.00 a year out of their photography. What do they care about going across the country to a convention. Nothing to them. For an instructor who was getting around $2,000.00 a year, at that time, that's a 01:29:00different matter. You've got to look some of these things in the face. It's all right to be grand and glorious but you got to pay your bills.

JL: Well, what kind of things did you learn then at these conventions?

JG: Well, It got to where we learned chiefly how to run the business, and how to get the money. How to get the business away from the photographer across the street and all that stuff. I wasn't Interested in that and I didn't go to those things when I could get out of it. But, where the put on demonstrations of how to do photography of certain types for certain purposes I enjoyed it. That was my line and I went and watched it. When it came to how to run the business and squeeze every last cent out of it I wasn't Interested. I remember a fellow making quite a talk once. He was making quite a specialty of photographing making copies of old pictures of people who had died. Their 01:30:00relatives suddenly discovered we just don't have any but this one little picture of him and we'd like to have some. All the relatives want one and he found he could just charge lots of money for doing a simple little easy job of copying that picture and making something a little bigger. You bet there was money in it. They were up against it. They didn't have anything else and he could make something else and he was quite satisfied with the fact that he made lots of money at it. I wasn't I wasn't interested.

JL: What other innovations do you remember observing when you went to these conventions besides the banquet camera?

JG: Oh, nothing special. You see most of those commercial photographers are interested in getting the money and they want to do what photography is 01:31:00necessary they want to know enough about it to do what is necessary to get the money and beyond that they don't care.

JL: But you went in the early days it wasn't like that you said.

JG: Well, it was to some extent but not as much as it is now. Their interested now in $25,000.00, $50,000.00 and $100,000.00 set ups of things to process color pictures. I'm not interested in that stuff. I'll process a few to know how it's done and what it's possibilities are and what I might do with it but that that has to do with the commercial side of it I'm not interested in. I never saw any future...

JL: What part are you interested in exactly?

JG: Well, I'm interested in photography and how it works and what can be done with it but as to how big business worlds I 'm not interested in it.

JL: Are you still experimenting with photography?

JG: Oh, to some extent. Not, I don't spend a lot of time at it but I do try different things. I have home now a piece the kids sent us from Africa, a piece of elephant tusk about that long and that big around. Great heavy thing which is carved all over the whole surface is carved and it's a beautiful thing but just to put it down under ordinary lighting it's just a white surface. You don't see anything. I want to rig up lighting that will show that carving and the things that are on it and I've experimented with it some. I don't have what I want yet. Back up just a little bit and I think I have...