1938: Photography

Public interest in photography was reflected in many ways during the year as shown by the large number of camera, film, paper and equipment sales; the continued and increasing popularity of 'picture magazines'; a rapidly-growing list of camera clubs; more widespread use of color films; the extensive use of photography by newspaper and periodicals with color pictures beginning to predominate over black and white in some publications; and active public support of the numerous photographic exhibitions throughout the country.

Amateur Photography.

Never before has the photographic amateur been faced with such an array of attractive products for his use. Almost unknown two decades ago, the miniature camera was supplied in over a hundred models, for which a wide selection of films could be obtained. New fast panchromatic films having four times the speed of the older orthochromatic emulsions were made available as well as films of much finer grain than any manufactured heretofore. Improved color films were also announced and the number of users of such films has been increasing constantly. For certain small film cameras infra-red sensitive films and films of great contrast and fine grain for microcopying were in use.

Estimates placed the number of camera clubs in the United States at over 5,000, with new ones being organized nearly every week. The need for lectures for so many clubs was supplied in part by lecture services of several of the manufacturers of photographic products who loaned prepared notes and slides on request. Amateur cine enthusiasts were said to be using 250,000 small motion picture cameras. About 17,000,000 cameras were stated to be in use, or one for every eight persons in the country.

Many non-photographic magazines have started photographic sections and several new periodicals devoted exclusively to photography have made their appearance. Upwards of 16,000,000 all-picture magazines are said to have been purchased each month in the United States. Since 1931, it is claimed that there has been a 40-per cent increase in the use of photographs by the daily press, who have spent over $5,000,000 on this department of their papers.

Special train trips and boat cruises were sponsored in various parts of the world to enlist the interest of the amateur photographer. Snapshots at night were made much more easily with the aid of the faster films, and improved photoflood and photoflash lamps.

Professional Photography.

During the year both illustrative and portrait photographers worked hard to supply the demand for more pictures for advertising, magazine illustration and news photographs. Their work was aided by the introduction of films and plates of finer grain and improved color sensitiveness and speed. Commercial cameras of greater rigidity and all-metal construction were made available. The majority of paper prints were made by projection on enlarging papers of high speed and wide emulsion latitude. Direct warm tone papers were quite popular.

Color Photography.

Perhaps the most outstanding event of the year was the introduction in October of a sheet color film in sizes to 8 x 10 inches. This film consisted of three color sensitive emulsions coated integrally with separating layers of dyed gelatin. This monopack emulsion could be loaded in commercial cameras and exposed in much the same way as an ordinary film. Development to a three color transparency was done by the manufacturer; the final color image being pattern-free and almost grainless. A similar type of color film (35 mm. wide) had been used by illustrative photographers previously but the larger sizes offered several advantages because the resulting transparencies could be copied more easily by photoengravers.

News Pictures.

Film emulsions of greater speed and latitude helped the press photographer to satisfy the request of his newspaper for a larger number of better pictures. Photoflash bulbs with a longer maximum-intensity period proved a boon to the cameraman when synchronizing the exposure with the 'flash.' More compact cameras were made available for news photographers and a larger percentage of such workers carried miniature cameras for 'candid' pictures and 'sequence' photography.

Aero-Mapping.

The most comprehensive aeromapping program ever undertaken was in progress in the United States under the direction of several government departments. The total net area photographed from 1926 to June 1938 was over 1,500,000 square miles of which 65 per cent was primarily for the estimation of crop areas. New precision single and multiple lens photogrammetric cameras were in use and others were under construction. Aerial photographs were being made at night with a special camera synchronized electrically with the firing of a flashlight bomb.

The greatest area of glacial ice outside of the Polar regions was photographed in August by the Harvard University—National Geographic Society Alaska Expedition, and maps will eventually be made from the photographs of this hitherto inaccessible region. Color photographs of extensive glacial areas were also made for the first time by air.

Most aero cameras have a capacity for one hundred feet or less of film, but this quantity was soon used up in a comprehensive aero-mapping job. To meet this need, a camera was designed by a Michigan firm to use 500 feet of film and make more than 600 exposures. This camera was tested in an unconventional pusher-type airplane especially designed for air-mapping photography.

Greater precision in map-making was assured with the aid of the non-shrink topographic films and papers. A new lens was said to cover three times as much area as hitherto possible from a given altitude. Improved panchromatic films of very fine grain were made available especially for aero-photography.

Cinematography.

Two general developments were noteworthy in cinematography during the year; first, a more widespread use of color photography, chiefly by the technicolor process, for feature pictures, cartoons and 'shorts'; and second, a rapid acceptance for production schedules of the new fast panchromatic fine-grain films. The technicolor plants in the United States and Great Britain had a stated capacity of 130,000,000 feet of color prints. About 50 per cent of that capacity was said to be contracted for in 1938-39, whereas only forty million feet were delivered in 1937. Other useful advances in cinematography were: new fine-grain films for sound recording which gave less surface noise, greater volume range and more faithful sound reproduction; improved fine-grained films for background work where a moving scene is photographed as it is projected on a screen to form a background behind the players; further refinements in camera design; optical printers for pictures and sound; and better quality of picture and sound reproduction in theaters.

Studios were using portable equipment for the major portion of their sound recording for pictures; this plan permitted quick interchange from studio to location. Theater prints were occasionally being made from duplicate rather than from original negatives because of the improved quality of film emulsions for duplication.

Television.

Developments in television were being followed with great interest by the motion picture industry, especially with regard to the employment of motion picture film as the source of images for television programs. A successful large scale experiment was conducted by the Bell Telephone Laboratories. It consisted in transmitting images from a motion picture film over a coaxial cable from New York to Philadelphia. Similar experimental work was in progress in Great Britain and Germany. (See also RADIO.)

Scientific and Applied Photography.

The use of photography for documentation has been well known for many years but only comparatively recently, with the introduction of miniature cameras and emulsions of finer grain did this field begin to expand quite rapidly. Several new types of copying equipment using 35 mm. film were introduced and devices were announced to facilitate the rapid inspection of the small images. The American Documentation Institute was incorporated in Washington for the development and application of micro-photography to library and scientific work. A quarterly Journal of Documentary Reproduction made its bow in January. Similar projects have been undertaken abroad, especially in Great Britain, France, Germany and the U.S.S.R. The entire file of the London Times has been photographed on motion picture film. The Constitution of the Soviet Union has been printed by reduction onto thin sheets of platinum for filing in their archives. Over 13 per cent of the banks in the United States were said to be using equipment to photograph all checks which were handled daily. The Bank of England was reported to be making photographic records of everything in its files — back to 1694.

Education Films.

Pedagogical applications of photography have grown slowly in this country but seem to be developing somewhat rapidly abroad. Within the past three years schools in Germany were furnished with 20,000 16 mm. projectors, and about 300 educational films have been produced. In Great Britain, the motion picture was recognized quite recently as a normal part of the school equipment and it was estimated that 2,250 teaching films were available. Impetus was given the program in America by favorable reports of several groups, including the Rockefeller Foundation, the National Education Association and the New York State Regents Inquiry on Character and Cost of Education.

Photographic studies on highway safety have been conducted by several organizations in the United States in an effort to reduce the number of fatal accidents. Members of police departments in many cities throughout the world are equipped with small cameras for the use of their members. Photographic evidence is used effectively by government departments of justice in the prosecution of criminal cases as noted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation.

A remarkable time-lapse film of root growth was shown at the Royal Society in June. Actual growth rate was speeded up 30,000 times in the film, a phenomenon possible to be shown only by photography. Cavitation, or the formation of vacua behind airplane propeller blades with consequent power loss, was studied with the aid of high speed photography at a United States Navy Yard. Exposures of the order of 1/50,000th second were required to stop the motion of the propeller blades which rotated at 1400 r.p.m. Natural color motion pictures were made at the General Electric Research Laboratories with a high speed camera (1,000 pictures per second) of electric arcs being struck in different gases. As slowed down by the camera, the brilliantly-colored flames were seen to push out tiny flashing globules of molten metal around the tops of the glowing electrodes. Pictures were shown in Germany, at the National Educational Film Bureau, of bullets striking armor plate, the exposures being made at the rate of 250,000 per second. In theory it was claimed that frequencies of 5,000,000 to 10,000,000 per second were possible, but the problem is presented of finding a subject which moves fast enough to photograph at such speed.

In the field of astronomy, Mount Wilson Observatory prepared a beautiful dispersion spectrum, 15 feet long on a natural color film, of the star Arturus. The McMath-Hulbert Observatory at Lake Angelus, Michigan made a remarkable motion picture of solar prominances, which are great masses of incandescent gases thrown off the sun's surface. A peculiar phenomenon was revealed for the first time in these photographs when it was observed that many of the prominances after being thrown off several hundred thousand miles were sucked back to the surface again.

The photographic emulsion provides a unique medium for the study of the atomic particles ejected in natural radioactivity and the disintegration caused by cosmic rays. Examples of this technique were displayed at the September exhibition of the Royal Photographic Society in London.

Only a few of the many applications of photography have been noted but it is safe to say that there is scarcely a field of endeavor in science or industry which has not been aided in some way by this useful medium.

See PAINTING AND SCULPTURE: Graphic Arts and Photography.