What is Camerage?
July 20, 2017 8:20 PM Subscribe
This Galaxy magazine cover from 1952 is credited to "Camerage," which according to the issue's editorial is an experimental photographic technique. I can't find any other references to Camerage online, and as far as I can tell it was only ever used on one other cover. I'm wondering if it's something incredibly obscure, or if it's just another word for a well-known photographic technique (like how "Rayograph" is another word for photogram).
This is the editorial, which explains how it's done:
"The artists are Jack and Bob Strimban and Sam Willig, and the name they have devised for this entirely new technique is "Camerage."
Now let's see how clearly it can be explained. That isn't an easy job, for much of the process can be described only by paradoxical statements.
For example, Camerage is a three-dimensional montage effect—but it's not a montage. Many photographers do montages; they combine sections of several pictures to make a single complex photograph. That has to be done in the dark room.
Well, Camerage takes the dark room out into the studio. All the objects in the picture are assembled at one time, illuminated by projected colored lights—some with plain gelatins, others with gelatins in abstract shapes—and are shot by a number of cameras placed on different planes.
A panel of rheostats precisely controls the light that each object receives from every one of its sources.
The effect of this is no less than startling. Each object Can be made completely opaque, translucent, or absolutely transparent—not just for the camera, but right in front of your eyes!
Once they achieved that, the artists immediately went to work on apparent size. By controlling the amount, direction, color and shape of light, they can increase or decrease the size of each object without moving either it or the cameras a single inch. Again, this effect can be seen with the naked eye.
A photographer can instantly recognize the advantages of the process. Instead of working by guess and by God in the dark room, he obviously would prefer to have everything visible and under exact control. That's what Camerage allows—photographic orchestration of color, shape and size, since the whole thing is done in one operation rather than many, and in the open studio.
The day of lucky accidents leading to important discoveries is evidently not over, for that's just how Camerage was found. However, the Strimbans and Willig had to put in almost three years of exhaustive experimenting before the cover on this issue could finally be produced.
That's right—this is the first appearance of Camerage. Using our cover as a sample, the artists quickly acquired orders to go and do likewise for Vogue, some large advertising agencies, a product packager—and are negotiating to make a feature-length film with the process. But you'll be seeing more Camerage covers in future issues of GALAXY."
This is the editorial, which explains how it's done:
"The artists are Jack and Bob Strimban and Sam Willig, and the name they have devised for this entirely new technique is "Camerage."
Now let's see how clearly it can be explained. That isn't an easy job, for much of the process can be described only by paradoxical statements.
For example, Camerage is a three-dimensional montage effect—but it's not a montage. Many photographers do montages; they combine sections of several pictures to make a single complex photograph. That has to be done in the dark room.
Well, Camerage takes the dark room out into the studio. All the objects in the picture are assembled at one time, illuminated by projected colored lights—some with plain gelatins, others with gelatins in abstract shapes—and are shot by a number of cameras placed on different planes.
A panel of rheostats precisely controls the light that each object receives from every one of its sources.
The effect of this is no less than startling. Each object Can be made completely opaque, translucent, or absolutely transparent—not just for the camera, but right in front of your eyes!
Once they achieved that, the artists immediately went to work on apparent size. By controlling the amount, direction, color and shape of light, they can increase or decrease the size of each object without moving either it or the cameras a single inch. Again, this effect can be seen with the naked eye.
A photographer can instantly recognize the advantages of the process. Instead of working by guess and by God in the dark room, he obviously would prefer to have everything visible and under exact control. That's what Camerage allows—photographic orchestration of color, shape and size, since the whole thing is done in one operation rather than many, and in the open studio.
The day of lucky accidents leading to important discoveries is evidently not over, for that's just how Camerage was found. However, the Strimbans and Willig had to put in almost three years of exhaustive experimenting before the cover on this issue could finally be produced.
That's right—this is the first appearance of Camerage. Using our cover as a sample, the artists quickly acquired orders to go and do likewise for Vogue, some large advertising agencies, a product packager—and are negotiating to make a feature-length film with the process. But you'll be seeing more Camerage covers in future issues of GALAXY."
I've seen a similar style on the covers of a handful of Perry Rhodan magazines (German sci-fi pulps) but they weren't that old, probably 70s? Looking online I can't find a good example of what I'm thinking of unfortunately. I've heard the style called photo montage but I'm not sure if that is the right term exactly.
posted by Ashwagandha at 9:30 PM on July 20, 2017
posted by Ashwagandha at 9:30 PM on July 20, 2017
The Camerage technique is used on this album cover, 1954's Hi-Fireworks.
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:04 PM on July 20, 2017
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:04 PM on July 20, 2017
And Galaxy used the team's services again for the March 1953 cover.
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:06 PM on July 20, 2017
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:06 PM on July 20, 2017
Best answer: This link involves another '50s album cover, Quiet Music. (The record collector interviewed mentions he's only got one other album from the 40s & 50s featuring Camerage; if it's not the one I previously linked it's this Jo Stafford.) The Strimbans' graphic art (as a team and separately) shows up around the web in later decades, but there's one Sam Willig who passed away in 1965. Maybe that event brought about the end of the Camerage collaboration? (Alternatively, there's another Sam Willig, a photography professor at a community college in NJ, who died in the late 1970s, and the partnership was dissolved for other reasons.)
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:38 PM on July 20, 2017
posted by Iris Gambol at 10:38 PM on July 20, 2017
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There's also another mention in Art Direction from 1954: "The Camerage team (see article in this issue) of Jack and Robert Strimban and Sam Willig prepared this October cover. Jack Strimban is circulation promotion art director for Newsweek..."
So the technique was used for at least two magazine covers, but it doesn't sound like it spread beyond this particular photographer.
posted by dilaudid at 8:51 PM on July 20, 2017