The Application of Camera Work to Design Studies in Metal - Photography retains that magical property of being able to stimulate, excite and exhilarate the most blase.

Abstract

My original intention was to give the boys instruction in the use of cameras and a little guidance on suitable subjects for photographs, then to turn them loose in the town and use the school's darkroom to develop and print the results of their efforts. The prints would then be mounted on boards for use as visual aids in the metalwork shop.

I soon ran into snags. The school darkroom had just been demolished as part of a massive reconstruction programme. The cost of commercial developing and printing, added to that of hiring cameras and buying film made the whole project very expensive and a request to the LEA for financial assistance met with refusal. As the entire project now had to be financed privately I had to reduce its scale and made do with three cameras. Another worry was that the weather might let us down; it being too dark in December to begin photography after school we had to trust to luck that a dry and sunny Saturday would turn up, which, happily, it did.