I love vintage cameras, and whenever I see them at auction, I bid on them. Most of the time, I’m lucky and walk away with a couple. But I can’t seem to get my hands on an early Graflex, a beautiful old camera with bellows.
The Graflex came to mind a few weeks ago when it was mentioned in a news obit about Philadelphia photographer Jack T. Franklin. For more than 60 years, Franklin had aimed his camera at local and national celebrities, sorority and fraternity events, black soldiers during World War II and most importantly, the civil rights movement in Philadelphia.
He died three weeks before the passing last week of photographer Roy DeCarava, who captured black life in Harlem during the same period. The two men were born three years apart during the early part of the 20th century.
DeCarava was the most famous of the two, and was renowned for his black & white shadowy images. Most people outside Philadelphia may have never heard of Franklin, but he was a fixture at local events in his trademark black beret.
In Franklin’s obit, a woman remembered seeing him walking in their North Philadelphia neighborhood when she was a child (he rode the subway to assignments). “He used to walk through the streets with his Rolleiflex and Graflex cameras,” the woman told a Philadelphia Inquirer reporter.
That statement piqued my interest. I wanted to learn more about Franklin and the cameras he used to tell his stories. And when I heard that DeCarava had died, I wondered the same about him.
I’m familiar with both the Rolleiflex and Graflex cameras. Both are as beautiful as they come. While I never bought a Graflex, I did manage to out-bid someone on a Rolleicord, one of the least expensive in the Rolleiflex series. This one was a Rolleicord Ia, produced between 1937 and 1938.
The Rolleiflex is a German camera that was first produced in 1929 and the first to use roll film. It’s a Twin Lens Reflex Camera (TLR), meaning it has viewing and taking lens mounted on the front. The creators came up with the idea during World War I. They wanted a practical camera to use on the battlefield. Production didn’t come until years later.
Famed photographers Diane Arbus and Ernst Haas both used a Rolleiflex.
The Graflex Speed Graphic was the camera of choice for early newspapermen. I’ve seen many an old movie with white male reporters, some half-sitting on desks, others in chairs, a Graflex plate camera in hand, waiting for a morsel from the local mayor or police chief. The most famous photograph taken by a Graflex was the World War II image of Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima in 1945, photographed by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal.
Franklin took more than 400,000 photos, which are now housed at the African American Museum in Philadelphia. His news shots of historical events may be the most significant. He covered the 1963 March on Washington, and he was there in 1965 for the Selma to Montgomery protest march, photographing Dr. King and his wife Coretta, along with others.
Franklin got his first camera at age 11 in 1933 when he was given a Brownie camera.
“The way I treat photography is different from how other people treat it,” Franklin said in a 2006 interview with the Philadelphia Tribune. “…. The idea is to photograph what they’re doing. The atmosphere of the surroundings is very important because that’s telling you what year, so when you see a picture you can say, ‘Oh that was taken in the ’30s.’ That’s the purpose of photography: the main reason is to identify.”
All I could find out about DeCarava’s camera was that he used a 35mm camera. He purchased the first one in 1946 to photograph images he wanted to paint. He soon ditched the paint and kept the camera. One account of his life noted that his mother had used a Brownie Box camera to photograph friends and neighbors.
I can only speculate what type of 35mm camera he used, but here are some types that were available around that time. Most were rangefinder cameras (they focus with a mechanism that measures distances).
Maybe he used a Leica, which was very popular. DeCarava’s style of black and white dimly lit photos have been likened to those of Henri Cartier Bresson, who used a Leica 35mm rangefinder camera with a 50mm lens. Bresson described the small hand-held camera as a “big passionate kiss, or then again like a shot from a gun or the couch of a psychoanalyst.”
Life magazine photographer Robert Capa used a Leica for his famous war photos. German filmmaker, photographer and Nazi propagandist Leni Riefenstahl also used a Leica.
DeCarava’s other choices of rangefinders: Argus Model A that sold for under $10. Argus Model C3, affectionately (or unaffectionately), called the Brick because of its shape and size. I love the look of the C3; it’s a mighty camera. It’s not likely the camera he used. Too heavy. 
DeCarava told a Washington Post reporter in 1986 why he chose photos over paintings:
“I didn’t know what I wanted to paint, but photography told me right away,” he said. “I was very shy, scared to death of people, and somehow the camera gave me a license, a way of relating to people.”
I too always wondered what Mr. DeCarava shot with. I even once called his home in Brooklyn, some 30 years ago — but was too shy to get a real question out. I did read somewhere, also years ago, that he preferred a 35mm that allowed him to check depth of field. That rules out a Leica. I gave him a photograph of Dizzy Gillespie that I took in San Francisco. I was pleased when I finally met him at his MOMA exhibition, that the image was in his library. Roy achieved his rightfully elevated status — because he was a true artist. His influence is profound.