Christmas Card, 1951
What did people do to manipulate images before computers? Above is an example of what my father did. He made the family Christmas Cards with a camera, a darkroom and developing chemicals, and a little creativity.
So, how did he do it? Those of you who have never known a world without computers and special software to perform such tasks would likely be scratching your heads if someone were to take away your electronic toys and tell you to produce something like this. Most of you have never had to take mechanical drawing (drafting) in school, and some of you have never even taken photos with film, much less had to develop them yourself.
I’ll try to explain the process to you, but remember all this happened in 1951, long before many of you were born. First, he took photos of each family member separately (I am conspicuously missing, for good reason!), including a photo of himself, using a timer to release the shutter (a shutter is an internal part of the camera that shields the photosensitive film from all light until time to capture an image). Then he developed each photo in his darkroom, printed the photos on photo paper (actually another photograpic process–no “printing” machine or inks involved), dried the paper, and then he cut out, using scissors, each image and pasted them onto the card. After that (or perhaps just prior to that), he used a pen to ink the Christmas greeting. With the ink and paste dry, he set up his lighting, carefully avoiding glare, placed his camera on a tripod, and took a photo of the completed card. Then he developed this final photo and printed as many cards as he planned to send out, with one extra card to keep–the one you see here.
Easy, right? Well, I’ll tell you this: he impressed a lot more people with his trick photography than you will likely ever impress with your photoshopping–or he would have, had he access to the Internet. But in that case, of course, he would have had a computer.
Would you have ever guessed that Dad worked for the phone company?
