Dad, High Contrast

This is my dad, early 1930s. He looks to be a teenager here, some years before he went away to Toronto to study optometry. He's carrying a single shot Savage 22 calibre, which my oldest brother still owns.  

I experimented a great deal with the NuArc graphic arts line camera at work, and was enthralled for a time with what was then a new effect for me: high contrast. I shot my own black and white photographs, or in this case, an old one of my dad.  A line camera does not produce colour, only negatives or black and white mechanical transfers. Shades of grey require screens and complicated exposures. Personal projects are inevitably what you get when you give an artist unsupervised access to equipment and materials!

June 6 – today's post – was my dad's birthday, by the way.

Below are the exact two types of line camera I used for over 20 years. At right is the NuArc which was replaced in 1994 by a newer vertical model at right. That camera lasted a short four years before scanners, computers and graphics software took over and rendered it obsolete. I would be surprised if any line cameras are in use today. Why were they called line cameras? I have no idea. Do any of you know?