Born To Be a Newspaper Man

by Martin J. McGowan Jr.

How Press Photography Changed

My uncle, F. R. "Pat" McGowan, also my godfather, was the photographer for the Appleton Press in its early days. I am guessing but I believe he must have taken the first local pictures that appeared in the paper.

He used a Graflex camera made by the Eastman Kodak Co. It looked like a square box that had a flip-up hood. Looking down into the hood that emerged under the cover he could see the full image of what would be taken. It used 3-1/4 by 4-1/4 roll film. There was a knob on the lower right side that would focus the image. The photo was taken by a cloth screen that flashed across the film when a lever was pressed on the left side. The speed of the photo was governed by how rapidly the screen zipped down to expose the image to the film.

The Swift County Fair was held in Appleton and Pat was secretary of the fair board. I know he must have taken many photos at the fair and other public events.

When Betty and I were married Pat took our wedding photo with the Graflex as we stood in front of the Nolan family home at 615 North Fifth St., Brainerd. That picture became known as the "Bonnie and Clyde" photo after some prominent bank robbers in the 1930's. We had the same sober faces as the robbers in photos of them.

I don't know why we were so sober unless we were worried about the years ahead. After that photo was taken we took off for our weekend honeymoon in Duluth.

While I was still in high school I persuaded my father that we needed a more modern camera. So we acquired a 4 x 5 Speed Graphic, also made by Eastman Kodak Co. This camera used sheet film which had to be loaded into film holders in the darkroom, two sheets to a holder. The holder was inserted into the back of the camera and a covering slide pulled out to make the film available for exposure. After the exposure was made the slide was inserted again into the film holder and the holder was turned over. That made the second side available for a shot.

The lens was composed of metal eaves that opened and closed. The lens could be set for high speed exposure to stop action. A flash attachment was also connected and the flash was synchronized so it would illuminate at the time the lens was most open. I used that camera when Appleton high school participated n the state high school basketball tournament in the Minneapolis auditorium in 1938. The flash bulbs in those days were the size of a regular light bulb and had to be discarded after each shot.

As time went on I had a darkroom built in the Press office.

There I loaded the film holders and also developed the film. This was done by putting the exposed film in holders that held the film as it was suspended into tanks of developer, stop rinse and the fixing bath.

To get that film made into a printing plate took advance planning. A photo taken at a basketball game on a Friday had to be developed Saturday and sent off to St. Cloud, the location of the only photo engraver in the area. This was occasionally done by bus so the engraving would be back by Tuesday for makeup in the pages. We later acquired an engraving machine that would cut the image into a plastic sheet. This machine was like a lathe. The photo was put on one end and the plastic on the other. As the lathe turned a light scanned the photo and instructed a hot needle what to cut in the plastic.

All this was further simplified when we went to photo offset printing in Blue Earth. There the photo was converted into a screen negative that was placed on the printing film of the individual pages. The page film was placed on sensitive printing plates that were exposed to a flash of light and developed. This provided the printing plate that went on the press to print the paper.

Today this process seems to have reached the ultimate with digital cameras. Instead of placing the image on film, the image is stored in a computer memory. It can then be transferred to page makeup on computers. Gone are the darkrooms, the film, the tank development of the film, the print of the photo and the engraving. However, it took photo pioneers like Pat and me to reach this point.

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