TIME TO RETIRE

After Half a century in photography, it is now time to think about retirement. A short time ago when I arrived at a venue to photograph a ball, the head barman came up to me and said, “Are you still doing this?” “You photographed me when I used to go to these things many years ago.”
A few years ago while at a Deb ball, a mother of one of the debs remarked. “You photographed me when I was a deb. And now your photographing my daughter as a deb.” A father of one of the other debs also said that I photographed him when he was at school. Many remarks have been passed like these over the years. Time and time again people have said they have seen me somewhere before. It usually works out they have been to a function I have been photographing. Arriving at a 21st one time, a person told me later that she overhead a whisper,”they’ve got that good photographer again”. It’s good to hear these remarks. But it also makes you realize you’re getting older.

One of my first jobs as a photographer was street photography in Canada. It was in Toronto in 1957 when I took a course in photography from which I received a diploma. A short time later I did a more advanced course with the New York Institute of photography.
On returning to New Zealand I worked for several years with Green and Hahn Photography in charge of printing in the candid department. I was soon trained in candid photography which took up most evenings and weekends. In those days, candid photography was very popular. I can remember twelve firms all doing candid work. On weekends most of them employed 5 or 6 extra photographers. Competition was tough. You had to be good to get the best jobs. Every Friday and Saturday night we would each have a 21st...There would also be a mid week 21st as well because there weren’t enough halls for everyone to have the weekend. There would be weddings to do on a Saturday as well as other functions. And at night there would be a job before a 21st and then onto a ball.
During the winter months every Friday, Saturday and Wednesday nights there were the Debutant balls at the Winter Gardens. Usually ending up with 25 films a night and finishing about 2 A.M.. There was no time to enjoy your self. In those days there were no automatic cameras and no auto focus. You had to set the lens and focus for every shot.

Father Xmas photography was quite different to what it is now. There were no shopping malls. You had to go into the city to shop. There were only two or three Santa’s in Christchurch. D.I.C. and Hays. Each year I photographed D.I.C... The queue was endless. Every child was taken with Santa . Give the mother a card and they could order their black and white prints from the proofs next day. Although I was photographing Santa all day and late night on Friday, there were still xmas parties at nights and keeping up with the darkroom work. Father xmas processing and printing orders as well as orders from weddings and other jobs. During that time, I worked with and got to know some great photographers. Some of them have now passed on. I also photographed many V.I.Ps.

In 1965 I left, with a few others on an overland trip to London. It was during my time in England that I worked a full season as head photographer at Pontins holiday camp in Blackpool My experience in candid photography was a great advantage. It was at Pontins where I first met my wife. After the season finished and a holiday in Spain and Gibraltar, for the next few years, I run a very successful business in Southampton and then Southport (where my wife is from), doing photo keyrings. I tried to get this going in N.Z. but it didn’t take off. I still have some of the gear and boxes of key rings in the shed.
Just after men landed on the moon in 1969, we returned to New Zealand. After working a few months in a photographic shop, I joined Christopher Bede Studios. A large home portrait company covering all of N.Z. It begun with being sent to Auckland for tough interviews with some of the big bosses before starting on three weeks intense training in child and family portraits. Once I passed the test and training, I returned to Christchurch where I took over the Canterbury branch. After a while I became one of the company’s top photograohers both in sales and photography. I was later given the job of training other south island photographers so that the company didn’t have to send them to Auckland for training.

I started on my own after Christopher Bede went into receivership and closed. All work was still in black and white. Hand colour portraits and oil miniatures were the big thing. Competition was tough. Several other firms were doing home portraits. Most of them at one time had worked for Christopher Bede and started on their own. It was the best that survived.
I carried on in home portraits for the next ten years or so. But after a while it was getting harder. Keeping reps on the road booking appointments was the toughest part. So I branched more into weddings. My service and type of work became very popular. Things gradually changed from black and white to colour. My training and experience in wedding photography while at Green and Hahn was a great help. Apart from a good coverage, I tried to offer something different such as sepia toneing, vignetteing and superimposing. One of my most popular super-imposed shots was putting the bride and groom inside a wine glass.

At one stage, in an effort to try something else, I made my own photographic emulsion with the idea of coating and printing onto plates. It was fun and an achievement in making emulsion and it worked. But I had trouble getting a suitable plate. I did however obtain a good result on glass. But I didn’t know where to go from there so I gave it a miss.

Eventually I started getting more and more functions. Possibly with my experience during the early sixties. By this time, candid photography had died out and it was very difficult to get a photographer to do anything involving candids. I brought candid photography back. But there had to be a few changes. Instead of giving cards like we used to, it would be better to develop a way of getting proofs back and taking orders the same night. Photographing a function was not easy. It was a lot of hard work while every one else was enjoying themselves. There were a lot of preparations. Order books to be designed and printed. Chemicals to purchase and mix. And so it went on. But I did have a likening to this work. After photographing, every second counted. Back to the darkroom, process, then return with proofs. The rest of the night was spent taking orders. It worked well and word soon got about. Bookings started coming in including some out of town. I had to go a step further. Arriving at the venue early to set up a tempory darkroom. In the cleaner’s cupboard, the garden shed, under the stairs or even in a toilet. I remember one time hanging films under a tree to dry. All I had to ask the committee for was a small room, power point and water. I did the work and gave the service. At first it was all in black and white. But later I had to convert to give the same service in colour.

Eventually this work took over. Weddings and Portraits had to give way to jubilees and reunions. In 1990 I again went another step further. I bought a covered car trailer and designed and built a mobile darkroom. I was now the only photographer in N.Z. with such a service. Specialising solely in functions and events. Candid photography and groups. To my record I have photographed over 200 school jubilees, more than 300 family reunions. Hundreds of reunions and dinners of all types as well as dozens of international conferences. Some being attended with V.I.Ps. and even royalty. What ever the job, large or small, they all had this same unbeatable service. Not forgetting sport tournaments and hundreds of nurses and class reunions. Some 50 year class reunions I have done year after year. A nanny school graduation I have photographed 22 times. Apart from being well known by the public, I was also very popular at function venues with management and staff.

Then there were balls. All kinds of balls. For many years I photographed nearly all school formals. It became harder when more and more started up and tried to get into this sort of work. There were many rules and regulations on what they took and how the took them. I always had the highest turnover with the lowest prices. After some of these others took over, I felt sorry for a lot of schools who had a raw deal. I used to do school balls when it was no more than a barn dance in the school hall. There were also teams from rugby to marching.
All jobs, whether it was a reunion, group or ball, I did them all without a cover charge. Relying on orders only.

At 72 I feel its time I packed in. With bookings up to two years in advance, it takes a long time to wind up. I would have liked to train another person to take over and keep this fantastic service going. But it has been very difficult finding the right photographer So the best thing has been to slowly wind down. Even though, as far as candid photography goes, it will be the end of an era. Very soon I hope to be able to do my own thing like travel a bit more in our campervan without worrying about appointments. Although I have trained other photographers over the years to help out on busy nights and weekends, there is a lot more in it than meets the eye. There are many who I have tried to train that haven’t made it. There is an art in candid photography. There are also those unpleasant things that have to be done like packing up on a cold, wet or frosty night and winding up the cord that runs to the darkroom while every one else is enjoying themselves. Many nights not getting away till gone 2am. Even sitting in the darkroom rushing against time to get the proofs through. Often sweating with the heater on drying films. I have even been stuck in mud early hours in the morning on a wet night and being pulled out by the catering truck. Yes, the public were pleased with the service. But they didn’t always know what went on behind the seine. Neither did any of my photographers who by this time had gone home.
There were also the ladies taking orders. They were trained to work under pressure, as when the proofs were there it was all go. These ladies may not turn out till 9.30 or 10pm and would be there till the small hours.

But before I am completely free, there are still things I have to do. For a start there’s equipment to get rid of. I have some good camera gear that I won’t need any more. It may be hard now that digital has come in. The reason I didn’t change to digital was I didn’t have long to go and it would have been too costly. Some of my other gear may not be worth much, but could be handy for someone trying to set up their own darkroom.
There’s the workroom to go through. Sorting out what to keep, sell or dump. There are negatives going back more than thirty years. Portraits and candid jobs may be impossible to track people down. But jubilees and reunions, there are hundreds of them. Many of them may like the negatives for their achieves. I also have weddings going back to the late 1970s. During the early 1980s when colour was just taking over from black and white, colour printing wasn’t as good as it is now and gradually faded. There may be some disappointed people. But the negs are still good and if their photos were reprinted they would last a lifetime. Unlike today, photographers always kept their negs. Some only held them for about two years. I would hate to have to dump so many, but I have to move on and can’t take them with me.

After a small write up in the paper, a few people did claim there negs. But then help came. A call and a visit from the Canterbury museum. Amongst other things , they are taking my entire lot of negatives and spare prints of many reunions. So although I am finished, some of my life time work and my name may live on.

Gordon Heyward