GRIZZLED AND DIGITIZED
It was 40 years ago today (Aug. 27, 1970) I stepped through the front doors of the Canadian Press news agency, their office was then at 55 University Ave in Toronto, and thus began my career in photojournalism. I remember it was 9am on a Thursday, as Detective Joe Friday would say, when I entered the big black doors and headed to the lower or basement floor of the building to report for my first day as a “copyboy” in the Pictures Dept.
Some of you are saying, copyboy?…uhhhhh? and what in blazes does that have to do with photojournalism? Firstly I come from a newspaper family of writers and editors going back to the late 1800s. After I decided to leave school and with some strong urging from my grandfather decided to carry on the family torch and try the newspaper business. He was hoping I would become a writer like himself but that was not to be.
Now obviously since I knew nothing about working in the news business where else does one start?…well of course, at the bottom and a copyboy is, or was, the lowest of the low in the news industry. I am pretty sure copyboys and even the term have long disappeared from the lexicon of newsrooms joining other ancient terms such as “hot type” and “honey, get me rewrite”. Have any of you ever watched an old newspaper movie and hopefully noticed in some scenes a reporter banging out a story on the typewriter then rips it out and shouts “copy!” at which a young lad shows up takes the copy then runs it to an editor, who scribbles his edits then shouts the same and hands it off again. That’s a “copy”…boy….ahhhhhh
hh of course you say.
Since I was working in the Pictures operation my job was similar but slightly different though I did have to clear copy. There were about six or eight machines constantly hammering out stories in a very hot and deafening small room. At regular intervals I had to go in and clear the copy, neatly stack it, and give it to one of the photo editors on the desk who used it to write captions for photos and otherwise keep on top of stories of the day. One aspect of that job I will never forget was having to change a roll of paper and or an ink ribbon while the machine was still going…AND NOT!!!…loose a single line of a story. It was like being a one man pit crew in a car race, change the tires and refuel the machine without a hitch. Yes of course I mucked it up several times while learning, the paper was in crooked or the ink ribbon everywhere. One time after a particularly poor and slow performance I looked down at my sore hand, that have received several hits from the fast, hard hitting letter levers, and there was a complete word embedded in my skin. Once I got the hang of it, though, I used to race the clock on the wall in front of me to see if I could beat my last time ……ahh the good ole days!!….
My other jobs as one of three copyboys in the pix office was to dry photos produced in the darkroom, sometimes literally hundreds of prints for the daily and weekly mail outs to newspapers, pickup film from photographers on assignments downtown and to ride the red rocket to get photos from Toronto’s three newspapers (Star, Globe & Mail and Telegram) that CP had picked up to put out on the wire. Of course last but not least, several times a day I had to trek out to a nearby restaurant to get coffee and food for the photo editors. No coffee machines in the office in those days…hah!!! In fact I got to know the owners in the nearby diner so well that when on a coffee run I would go behind the counter myself and prepare the take away coffees, leave the money beside the cash and out without even being noticed. If it was food I could stick my head into the kitchen and tell the short order cook what I needed, “You Got it Buddy” he would shout back….ahh the good ole days!!..
By now you are probably really scratching your head, so where in gods little green apples does becoming a photojournalist come into this? Well between all the above mentioned jobs there were actually quiet times when I had nothing to do and when those times occurred I was into the darkroom and learning. There were four reall
y great darkroom techs who took time from their work to show me the then mysteries of the Chambre Noir. Gem Mitchell was the main one who took me under his wing and spent hours patiently showing me how to hand process rolls of film and make prints. I remember one particular time after Gem had taught me how to “dodge” an exposure with one’s hand while printing, my inexperienced hands waved in and out of the exposure rather sloppily to which he quipped “You let me know if the print every waves back”. Though my family genes dictated I was to become a writer once I saw what news photography was all about that’s what I wanted to be. I remember I had a slight interest in photography prior to starting at CP but nothing inside me suggested that’s what I wanted as a career until I saw what life was all about in photojournalism and it was then I was hooked.
Using all my spare time while on shift and coming in on my days off, I steadily learned the trade. I would shoot pictures with my Nikon F and 35mm lens and constantly go into the office process and print then show my work for advice and critique to whomever I could. In 1972 I was promoted from copyboy to darkroom technician, I was thrilled!! Soon after I began shooting the odd assignment when needed. I started regularly covering Toronto Maple Leaf hockey games on Saturday nights, which CP paid me the kings ransom of five bucks a picture instead of overtime. My first big assignment taking pictures came in 1972 as part of the photo crew covering the Royal Tour in which I spent several days following Queen Elizabeth’s events around Toronto. Later that year I got my second big assignment covering the Grey Cup Championship in Hamilton. In 1974 I was offered and without question accepted a transfer to the Ottawa bureau as a darkroom tech/photographer and a year later in June of 1975 I was promoted to a full time photographer. Over the next 35 years I went on from Canadian Press to work for the Hamilton Spectator, United Press Canada, Prime Minister of Canada and finally for the last 24 years with Reuters, based in Ottawa, Brussels, London, Toronto and now Vancouver. I am grizzled, scarred and now digitized but I am still as keen for a good picture as the day I started.
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PHOTOS: Top photo shows the version of teletype machine I worked with as a copyboy. Lower Photo shows one of the first photos I took after buying my first 35mm camera (Nikon F) in 1970.
t by the Naval Commander n Chief the Governor General. At one point we asked if we could go up to the bridge and take photos of the GG taking the review as we sailed by the various warships from around the world. No problem and up we went. Moments after we got up there and standing off to the side the GG was handed a ship momento to use. An old time Naval spyglass which she immediately put to her eye. Nice!!! perfect!!! just what we needed. Standing just behind her was a Rear-Admiral and a federal politician from Ottawa. As I began to shoot pictures attempting at first to go wide so as to hopefully include some of the anchored ships and the ambiance of the fly bridge, what unexpectedly but not surprisingly appears in my lens?… dirtying up the nice moment…a bloody blackberry poised to take photos…WTF!!!!!…and who was holding the idiot-berry?? none other than that federal politician standing just behind the GG. I couldn’t believe it!!!!…the phone/camera ebola virus has spread farther and more than I imagined. I stepped to my left but to no avail. It really ruined the moment for me….I quickly went tight on GG which at the time wasn’t what I wanted…but c’est la vie…and what then moves into my frame again!!….that damned ebola-phone!!!!. “Will no one rid me of this turbulent blackberry?” (…a select few words I borrowed from Henry II of England in reference to the Archbishop of Canterbury…but took some liberty and replaced the word priest). Unfortunat
ely as the GG kept looking through the spyglass she panned the fleet slowly away from us then put the glass down a minute or so later and shortly after we were escorted back to the lower decks.