CAMERAMA OF LUIS AZARRAGA

When Luis Azarraga fits his Camerama to its tripod, cranks it eighteen feet aloft and reaches for a flashlight switch, you may be sure that the picture he is about to snap will take in a lot more left-to-right coverage than could be captured by any other camera focussed from the same spot. The extraordinary lateral range of the Camerama-it's 160 degrees is greater than the human field of vision and almost twice the sweep of other wideangle-lens cameras. His panoramic views currently appearing in in the New York Herald Tribune, holder of exclusive newspaper and magazine rights to them, are spread dramatically across two pages and require two page-wide photo-engraving plates for their reproduction. Despite the vast area they cover, they are sharp and clear and entirely free from wide-angle distortion. With its high-speed shutter action the Camerama can catch a race horse with all four feet off the ground and at the same time encompass the entire race track. In a close-up shot of the liner United States sailing out of New York harbor, Azarraga got in well-defined detail not only the vessel itself but six miles of Manhattan skyline as well. But of all the Azarraga photos that have thus far appeared in the Herald Tribune his Camerama shot of a parade on New York's Fifth Avenue brings out most graphically its remarkable sweep. In that picture the camera seems to have been looking in two directions at once. It shows a long column of West Point cadets marching down the avenue toward the camera, executing a right-angle turn in the fore-ground, and marching away from the camera on a bisect-ing street to the right.

CAMERAMA DATA FOLLOWING PAGES

When we asked Luis Azarraga for some information on his Camerama technique he replied as follows: “Since the lens of my Camerama is mounted on barrel and devoid of a built in diaphragm and distance caliberation (it is fixed focus) I have designed three plates with different size holes. By using any one I achieve three things: 1, to hold gelatin filter; 2, to cut down the actinic value of light; and, 3, to sharply define the general picture. The lens itself is not fast but the film emulsions nowadays are very sensitive, which compensate for the slowness of the lens. I never use any of the numerous gadgets like electric meters, coated lenses, range finders, and multi-foci lenses, which only confuse rather than crystalize the obtaining of the much desired effect. When shooting pictures I only trust my eyes aided by my long experience.

When questioned about the innards of his odd-looking contraption. He guards his secret carefully. He permits no one to get near, much less peer into, the outsize aluminum box in which his invention is housed. It is not patented. Azarraga takes a dim view of patent procedure. He feels there is less likelihood of infringement if he alone is custodian of Camerama's secrets. Some years ago he patented a device for the automatic synchronization of camera range and shutter speed. The instrument companies whom he tried to interest in his patent would have none of it. They liked the idea, they said, but retooling to adapt it to their cameras would cost too much money. However, when the patent expired and became part of the public domain, they adopted the idea and it is now embodied in many of their more advanced models.

Luis Azarraga took his first picture in a candle-lit room of his home on Panay Island in the Philippines. Now sixty, and with some thirty-five years as a professional photographer behind him, he still considers that first picture to be one of his best. Home from the seminary where he was a student to attend the funeral of his grandfather, Azarraga borrowed an inexpensive camera and photographed the old man lying in state. The photograph, softly lighted by the candle rays, was masterful in its simple eloquence. It made a deep and enduring impression on Azarraga and was responsible, albeit indirectly, for his career in photography.

In 1914, shortly after his graduation from the seminary, Azarraga came to the United States. He landed in San Francisco with little money. From a number of odd jobs in Frisco he saved enough to take him to Chicago where, he'd been told, there were better opportunities for a mechanically inclined fellow to get ahead. The report proved to be true. On his arrival there in 1915, he stood on Michigan Boulevard watching the automobiles chug by. Although he'd never owned one he had a keen interest in cars and their motors and had picked up a working knowledge of them in his native Panay. To drive a car on Michigan Boulevard, he decided, would be his immediate goal. A month or so later he'd reached it-driving a truck to and from the post office for a Chicago correspondence school. The school had its own printing shop and in his spare time Azarraga, to get a better grip on the language, doubled as a proof-reader. When the school installed two new linotype machines, Azarraga, after working hours, taught himself how to operate them. In a short time he'd become expert. He gave up the truck-driving chores for a full-fledged linotypers job and soon was making more money than he'd ever dreamed of. And he had a lot more time to himself. He spent much of it in the Chicago Museum of Art. An art enthusiast with a special fondness for wide sweeping landscapes, Azarraga has little patience with those who hold that there is a basic conflict between the art of the painter and the art of the photographer.

Photography, he believes, no more encroaches upon the field of painting than it does upon music, sculpture or poetry. With Steiglitz, he believes that photography is an art form separate and distinct from all others. The painter's Photography records instantly and honestly every detail within its field of vision. Thus, Azarraga feels, the art of the photographer, like that of the painter, lies first in the mastery of his technique and secondly in his ability to visualize the final result in advance.

With the outbreak of World War I, Azarraga enlisted in the Army. After a training course in Chicago, he was assigned to the Army Air Corps base at Mitchell Field, New York, as an aircraft machinist. It was at Mitchell Field that Azarraga laid the foundation of his career in photography. It began as a hobby. During his spare time he photographed various activities at the base -camp sports, arrivals and departures of planes, important military personnel and the like. He was only one of hundreds doing the same thing to lessen the boredom of life in a military camp. Then Azarraga got a break. A British dirigible en route to United States altered its plans to land at Mitchell Field in favor of Montauk Point, some sixty miles to the east. On being notified of the change the official photographers at Mitchell Field hurried to Montauk Point. The dirigible changed its plans once more, however, and landed at Mitchell Field, its original destination. Azarraga was the only one to get a picture of its arrival. He was now in the limelight. Before long he had four hundred regular subscribers to his camera studies. He was making more money than the general. Photography, he decided, was his field. At the close of the war, Azarraga started a photo service in nearby Hempstead with the money he'd saved from his camp photography. It was a huge success. He became the official photographer for the BrooklynQueens-Long Island rotogravure section of The New York Times in the area and aerial photographer for the New York Daily News. For some twenty years he did all the aerial and commercial photographic work for a number of aviation companies, including Curtiss, Fairchild, Ranger Aircraft, Sikorsky Aviation and Republic Aircraft. In addition, he handled illustrations for Doubleday Page, publishers of Radio Broadcast, House & Garden and Town and Country magazines. With the outbreak of World War II, Azarraga disposed of his photo service and, as a civilian technician in the European Theater of Operations, photographed installations for the Army Ex-change Service. After the war he traveled widely in Europe and North America as a free lance photographer for various publications.

Meanwhile Azarraga through the years had been busy in another direction-the development of more efficient photographic equipment. Although the Camerama, which he perfected in 1940, marked a significant stride in photography's progress, its development came about as a by-product of Azarraga's efforts to design a widescreen moving-picture camera. It is now nearing completion in his New York laboratory. According to Azarraga, it will have not only a wider lateral range than those now in use but, by limiting the vertical dimensions of the scene in relation to its horizontal dimensions, will permit more natural appearing close-up shots of the cast. In addition, its film can be projected on a flat screen rather than requiring the curved screen that is needed for the wide-screen films now being shown. But beyond such broad generalities, Azarraga won't discuss his moving-picture camera. If he guards it as he has his Camerama, it will be a well-kept secret and a secret worth keeping.

Camerama study. Here are miles and miles of nothing but miles and miles as well as the wilderness of color and distance we know as the Painted Desert.