Apogee Photo - Home
Spread the News ~~ Click on this "Share
Button"
Send this Article to Your Photography Colleagues, Friends and Family
Spread It Around the World Instantly
|
|
The Art of Writing with Light
Profile: L. Ron Hubbard, professional photographer and teacher
by Sally Falkow
It
was 1924, when a young man in Washington, D.C., went off to his first
photography lesson, determined to earn a Boy Scout photography merit badge. To
reach his goal, the young man would have to demonstrate competence with a camera
as well as knowledge of the fundamentals of darkroom development. Some time
later, young L. Ron Hubbard marched into the National Museum to show the fruits
of his studies to an examiner, who sat behind a big desk that was cluttered with
human skulls. After looking over Hubbard's work, the examiner told the youngster
it was obvious he knew nothing about photography.
"I agreed with him perfectly," recalled young Hubbard. "A month and ten visits later, he signed my card just to be rid of me, telling me I’d never know anything about photography."
What Hubbard eventually learned from this experience was that photography means writing with light. A good photograph should communicate. He also learned that invalid criticism isn't useful. Often, it's also not true--as witnessed by Hubbard's subsequent success as a professional photojournalist.
How did the artistic transformation happen? Hubbard developed an intense interest in visually communicating his environment and began "writing with light" in earnest. He started out photographing the Scout trails. His shots featured fellow scouts, scoutmasters, and auxiliary staff. Back in Montana on his grandparents ranch, he studied with naturalist/portraitist William Taylor, and his focus broadened considerably.
Hubbard's
teen years were marked by extensive travel in the wake of his father's career in
the navy, and he saw places as far away as Guam and mainland China. A camera was
never far from his hand, and he recorded all aspects of life in these countries.
His sense of adventure plus his interest in people of different cultures and how
they survived was already evident.
Many of the men stationed on the island of Guam were avid snap shot takers, and the island had a thriving photographic studio owned by a Mr. Mayhew. Hubbard struck up a friendship with the Mayhew sons, who were just his age, and soon he was serving as a darkroom apprentice while Mayhew supervised and instructed.
Hubbard credited this experience as his stepping-stone to the professional arena, particularly in terms of standardization and learning to keep a vigilant eye on potential error. At that time, film shot in the humidity of a tropical island was subject to spotting and had to be processed quickly. Mayhew taught him to use different techniques, and he experimented with paper cutouts, superimposing images and hand-tinting black-and-white prints. The critical first sale of his work happened while he was still on Guam. In fact, six pictures of his exploration of the island appeared in National Geographic--not a bad start for an aspiring photographer. It certainly proved the Scout examiner’s prediction wrong.
China had a profound effect on Hubbard. He ventured into this somewhat forbidden region twice--starting with visits to Shanghai and Hong Kong and progressing further inland to visits to Peking and Mongolia. Traveling light, he didn't have much in the way of equipment. In fact, he worked with a pre-loaded rental camera, a popular Agfa foldout he acquired at the Young Photo Company along Shanghai’s famous Nanking Road.
Hubbard
described his specialty as harbor panoramas and candids in the street. The local
fear of cameras, bred from the superstition that photography could capture a
man’s soul, meant that he had to shoot quickly and unobtrusively--a real
challenge with the film of that time. His series on the Great Wall of China
shows his determination and initiative to get the shot. One thousand five
hundred miles in length, it's the largest structure ever built by man. While the
guidebooks of the day recommended a fifteen-minute walk to the wall, the
ramparts and truly grand vistas required achieving a much higher viewpoint. In
search of a spectacular shot, Hubbard persuaded a conductor on the Peking train
to make an unscheduled stop below Nan-k’ou pass. Hubbard commenced his
hour-long hike to the ramparts from there. His determination paid off when he
was among the first to capture a full seven turns of the Wall. In addition, his
Chinese shots provided his second sale. This time it was to the renowned stock
house Underwood and Underwood, so that his China Wall shots were published in
various geography texts of the day.
Returning to the States in 1929, Hubbard continued to take and sell pictures across the country. Action was his forte, as he shot barnstormers and other adventurous scenes, but he also took pictures for the Washington Herald. Hired as a freelancer for the paper, he authored a front-page essay on the dismantling of a much loved trolley line by providing a nostalgic look at the horse-drawn origins of the trolley. The newspaper spread sparked a flood of mournful letters to the editor.
During this time, he satisfied his love of travel and adventure by photographing expeditions. Working for the Sportsman Pilot, he did a profile of The Spirit of St. Louis designer Claude T. Ryan, took aerial shots of Citadel Laferriere on Haiti, and shot a series on the West Indies. He described how on this trip he had to shoot from his knees, as he leaned out of a two-seater bi-plane, to get clear of the wing and the fuselage!
He learned to see a picture, compose it, focus, shoot and reload fast. He most generally used the classic pressman’s Graflex with a single sheet of 4’x5’ film or, at best, a slow loading pack of five sheets, a far cry from the 35 mm fully automatic camera used by photo-journalists today. The professional in those days had to develop true dexterity with instant recognition of a picture and commensurately fast focusing, framing, shooting and re-loading of that single sheet. It truly was a case of "seize the moment." The shots were fleeting, and the equipment allowed only one chance to get the shot. As Hubbard later remarked, one had to learn to operate a camera "standing on your head."
Hubbard continued to refine his knowledge of photography over the years and became adept at using modern technology as it developed. Never satisfied with what was recognized as the limits of any system, he experimented and tested to see how he could simplify and codify the fundamentals of any technology. If an excellent photograph is the result of proficiency with camera, lens, film, meter, light and dark room procedure, then technical excellence needs flawless performance of each component. Hubbard tested every component exactingly, to pinpoint the accuracy and optimum level of performance it could produce.
His instruction to other photographers shows his complete grasp of the subject and willingness to share his knowledge. If "art is the quality of communication," as he defined art, then it follows that a photograph must, above all, communicate. It will always include a technical rendering of the shot, but the fact that the photograph communicates is the senior consideration. A photographer is operating in the realm of art and communication, and good photography is all about a picture that "talks."
When he first instructed students in 1978, Hubbard told them to ask this question: "What is this photograph saying?" All discussion about lenses, apertures, film, and shutter speeds is ultimately about photographic communication. His pupils were purposely equipped with the simplest of cameras, a Kodak Instamatic, so that they could rely on no technical wizardry to get their shots. "Put your attention on the picture and not on the camera," he told them. They learned the bottom-line fundamentals of photographic communication--framing and composition.
"There are only a few basics in composing a picture," said Hubbard. "The difference between a professional and an amateur is detectable by anyone a glance, even when they don’t know why. An amateur, for some reason, tries to get the most possible into one frame. He also does not see the world from a photographic viewpoint, with a frame around it. He does not fill the frame and he does not delete the unwanted things. A professional, on the other hand, is highly selective as to the center of interest. He excludes – deletes out – everything that does not pertain to the message. And he sees objects with a frame around them. Aside from composure and finishing quality, that is what separates the amateurs from the professionals."
Students were sent out to shoot rolls and rolls of film. Every shot was submitted – no matter what the student thought of it. Hubbard critiqued each shot and the students learned fast. Once they had acquired the skills of framing and composition, they were ready to move onto learning technical rendition, such as using different shutter speeds and how to emphasize key points of interest with selective focus.
"You don’t follow the rules because you’re told to; follow the rules to get a product that is effective," he said to the students. Here are some of his notes to those students:
"Composition is the arrangement of objects and people in the scene to forward the message. One uses color, harmony and design to make a picture integrate rather than disperse. Composition consists simply of putting shapes together that belong together and not including something that does not belong there. It is locating things where they would be expected and, for impingement, locating it where it wouldn’t be while at the same time controlling focus and interest.
"Composition is intricately linked with message, not with rules. Message comes before composition. The rules don’t guide you to a message, but the message will guide you in toward the rules, plus a message guides you in toward the contribution of the viewer. Composition is simply a portion of the harder subjects of meaning, message and emotion.
"This is the attitude you must have, ‘I’m the person who’s going to shoot this picture. This picture’s going to do you a lot of good, when I shoot them, they’re good,’" was Ron Hubbard’s advice. " Make sure that your shot is sufficiently letter-perfect so that when you click the shutter, it’s in the can."
_______________
Photos and quotes from L Ron Hubbard: the Photographer, copyright © 1999. ISBN 1-57318-166-8 Published with permission of L Ron Hubbard Library.
To view all archived articles by subject, click here. |
Apogee Photo and Apogee Photo Magazine are
trademarks of Apogee Photo, Inc. Copyright © 1995-2010
. Apogee Photo, Inc. All
Rights Reserved.