Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-10-04
NOTED
PEOPLE DESCRIBED
Daily Letter by Frederic J. Haskin

negatives is not much more than 10
years old.
Photographers Rank with Reporters
The business Of ~photographing the
progress of our government mas
grown to be as highly specialized
as that of reporting it in print. me
photographer has taken his place
along with the Washington cores
pondent. News photographers nave
their regular station at the White
House, for instance, just as do the
representatives of the press associa-
lions. This is all an ultra modern
development. Infants born before
the modern action news photograph
was understood at all are still min
ors. Yet today there is scarcely
any phase of historical progress
anywhere in the world that is not
being completely preserved in Pho
tcgraphs.
To appreciate the truth Of this
statement, the reader has only to
scare his recollection for a mental
image of, say. President Benjamin
Harrison in some active pose. He
has no such recollection, for he
never saw an action picture of Har-
rison. Except for those who saw
L ISS1uCIll 1IdII4oOAi IA AN PuoA2N
today has no better means of know
ing what he really looked like than
it has of knowing what Julius Gaze
sar looked like. 1t has some for
NAL portraits and that is all. The
same Is substantially true of Presi-
dents Cleveland and Mckinley; al
though motion pictures had been in
vented by McKinley's time, and the
movie camera was turned upon him.
But the photographing of news,
as we now know it, began during
Roosevelt's administration, when
Barney Clinedinst, a Washington
photographer, imported from Ger
many a camera with a shutter so
rapid that it would stop upon the
Photographic plate the swiftest kind
Of action. No man was more re-
ceptive to new ideas than Roosevelt;
and when Clinedinst told Roosevelt
about the new camera, the President
invited the photographer to test the
new instrument by taking some snap
shots of T. r. on horseback. The
famous photograph of Roosevelt
~vauiting a five-bar fence on a horse
was the result of that first appoint
nent-a photograph that is said to
have made Clinedinst over $4,000.
1t was the forerunner of the modern
action picture of public men.
Roosevelt was the best of all pres
idential subjects for the camera. He
was a man of striking actions, and
he Was that most excellent of all
posers, the man who can be utter
ly himself in front of the cameras
eye. But T. R. had something
more; he could sit in a studio and
register a portrait that fairly glowed
with his own personality. Other
public men can get this result occa-
sionally, and then they secure what
they cherish as their best pictures;
but Roosevelt had the facility all
the time.
1t was legendary the number OF
times President Roosevelt was pho
tographed, but the cameras have
clicked rel more industriously in
the vicinity of his successors. That
Is because of the increasing public
demand for pictures and the in
creasing number of cameras to sup
PLY the demand. Mr.. Taft did not
seem to lend himself well to photo
graphy-his pictures were all much
alike-but Mr.. Wilson anne in to
be another good subject and was
often photographed until his illness
after his return from the peace con-
ference. Since then pictures of Mr..
Wilson have been extremely hard to
get. Mrs. Wilson was photographed
less than any modern mistress Of
the White House.
Harding Much Photographed
Mr.. Harding Is an exceptionally
good subject for the photographer.
He poses well, as IL unconscious of
the lens, and gets a great deal of his
personality into the pictures. Since
his nomination for the Presidency
two years ago he has probably been
the most photographed man in the
world. Harris & Ewing alone have
a thousand pictures of him.
1t becomes evident from what has
been eaid of the taking of the Roose-
welt horseback picture that these
snapshots Of the great in action,
pictures that seem casual and acct
dental are in reality staged and ar
ranged affairs. And so they are
most OF them. Not long ago there
was published a photograph OF
President Harding playing golf on
the public links in Washington one
morning before most folks had eat
| en- their breakfasts. The unsophis-
ticated must have wondered how the
photographer. too, happened to be
thAys # that early hour He didn't