David Newman penning his memories this week to the PPHP – ‘There are different way’s to learn professional photography but I have never heard of a better way than starting at Fox Photo’s in The 1960’s.’
Fox Photos Farringdon Road agency stamp from the Press Photo History Library
Fox Photos Farringdon Road agency stamp from the Press Photo History library
The Press Photo History received an email from David Newman who worked at Fox Photo agency from 1963-1967 … “I am 78 years old and came across your site by accident. I left school in 1963 (age 16) and that year started work with Fox Photos where I stayed until 1967. In 1967 I joined Tella Photography, which became Brook-Tella shortly after. I also worked for a photo company called Photobition until 1975 when I moved abroad.”
FOX PHOTOS EMPLOYMENT AND OTHER PRESS PHOTOGRAPHY MEMORIES 1963 TO 1975
By David Newman
In July 1963 at the age of 16 I finished my time at the then infamous Holland Park School in Kensington, London. The school was also unique in that it was the first school in the country to have a Photography class on the curriculum, which I joined for 3 years. I had decided I wanted to become a professional photographer. Like many teenagers of that time and most of my friends, we ignored the advice of careers advisory officers and parents and decided to forget security and look for something exciting or even glamorous.
The go to place for photographic jobs was a weekly trade magazine called The British Journal of Photography. This had a large classified employment, section at the back. A company that advertised for school leavers nearly every week was a photographic press agency called Fox Photos which was situated pretty close to Fleet Street, home of the British Press.
Due to my unusual experience, It was pretty easy for me to get a job with them. I started in the basement where the black and white darkrooms were. I was an assistant to a gentleman named Alan Lane who was nearing retirement and was in charge of developing all the press photographs, including 5”x 4” B/W plates along with film. My first wage was £3.00 per week! I started work as a 16 year old b/w film processor on 8 August 1963.
Fox Photos had been around for about 40 plus years, the firm operated out of a four story plus basement Victorian building at 69-71 Farringdon Road about a mile from Fleet Street. It had also opened an addition small premises for colour printing just south of the river. In the main building there were 3 separate photography sections (press, commercial and exhibitions) with about 20 photographers. The press photographers were George Freston, William Vanderson, Reggie Spellar, Binnie Hales, a Mr Todd (“Toddy”)plus a couple whose names I can’t remember.
Freston was first choice for royal stuff, one was a fellow of the London Zoological Society and also did a lot of athletics. Reggie did pretty much what he wanted and very successfully even when he was pretty old. William Vanderson was rather aloof and did not mix much. Binnie Hales did a lot of horse racing.
They were all very talented and could pretty much turn their hand to anything including studio and commercial photography.
I would guess that there were about 80 people employed at the main office and about 30 were teenagers like me. When I asked the other kids how they wound up at Fox, the most common answer was ‘I had no idea what I wanted to do, when I left school and photography sounded interesting’. Few of them owned a camera or said it was a hobby. The most common start job was as a messenger in the Press dept (ground floor) under the rule of Les Graves head of the department. There was also another gentleman who dealt with weekly and monthly publications like Time, Life magazine, Paris Match and The Illustrated London News plus a whole host of German and Italian magazines.
Press photography was constantly changing mostly due to an unequal battle with TV news. Normally the cameramen knew what they were doing the next day, usually attending pre-arranged events or doing features (new born babies at the zoo being typical). It was rare for Les Graves to hear something breaking on the news and send someone scuttling off to cover it.
Of course 1963 changed everything including and especially the news. I had been interested in the news from about the age of 9 when The Suez Crisis broke. However, I nor anybody else could remember a year like 1963, not in peacetime anyway.
In January 1963 The Beatles released their first album and a rather odd political scandal/ raised its head which became known as “The Profumo scandal”. Alongside this Britain endured its coldest, snowiest winter in living memory. London was snowed under for months, up to April, there was no football and schools closed. This was of course great for press photographers! In addition to The Beatles, pop music changed completely, as did fashion, sex moved to the front pages and teenagers seemed to be suddenly changing the everyday world we were living in.
When I started at Fox Photos in late July 1963, it was all very exciting and there was plenty for press photographers to cover. August brought The Great Train Robbery and The Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan’s days as PM were clearly numbered. I settled in quickly as a reliable and safe b/w film processor. I lived in Kensington and to save train fares, I cycled to work but very soon asked my dad to lend me the money for a motor scooter, so I became an instant “Mod” you will soon see why I mention this.
On Friday 22 November 1963 at about 7pm, the BBC interrupted its programmes to announce that The US President John F Kennedy had been shot in Dallas Texas and shortly after told us all that he was dead. Unknown to me, the news spurred nearly all of the older staff at Fox to drop everything and head for the office. They worked all night finding library photos of the Kennedy family when they were in London. JFK’s father Joseph had been US ambassador to Britain in the first early years of the war and Fox had loads of photos of the young Kennedy’s in their late teens and early 20’s.
On Saturday morning at 9am I arrived at the office to find it unusually crowded for a Saturday and I soon realised they had all been there all night. I had barely got through the front door, when Les Graves came straight up to me and said “I need you to get on your scooter and go to the American Embassy and collect something for us, they will be expecting you”. I could hardly believe what I was doing when I approached a US Marine officer at The US Embassy and told him I was expected, he directed me inside. I was only in there few minutes before the gave me a tubular parcel and left but in that few minutes I was experiencing history. All the embassy staff were either crying or in complete shock and they clearly wanted to be doing things but there was little for them to do. Back at the office Mr Graves opened the parcel to reveal a beautiful, very large colour photo of the late President. Fox had a large display window at the front where we displayed our best work and the JFK photo was used as the centre of a special commemorative, which attracted a lot attention.
With all the misery about JFK, The Beatles provided a welcome distraction. Sometime that autumn they released their second Album, “With The Beatles” and began to receive attention in The USA. The Beatles were also chosen for the 1963 Royal Variety Performance and by chance, Fox Photos would be on the Royal Rota to cover the event! The actual performance was out of bounds for the accredited press photographers attending they primarily shot the Queen greeting the performers. However, George Freston who (not surprisingly) was chosen to cover this prestigious assignment decided to attend the rehearsals in the morning and afternoon. Along with the Beatles, Tony Bennet and Marlene Deitrich were also heading the bill, alongside The Dave Clarke Five and the usual comedians etc. George got some really fantastic pictures of The Beatles playing at rehearsal but I don’t think Fox were allowed to release them.
Now for the funny bit! Like a few of others, I thought a bunch of 10 x 8 glossy prints would impress my mates and the girls we knew – which they did. I began ordering staff discount prints and my older brother came up with an even better idea – why not sell them to the massive crowds queuing up for the forthcoming Beatles Christmas Show at Hammersmith Odeon. We made a fortune! Every Saturday a young trainee printer ( the senior ones never worked on weekends) printed up hundreds of these photos which I passed on to my brother. This came to an end one Saturday when the printer forgot to return the negatives to the library and it was thought they had been stolen etc.
The State Funeral of Sir Winston Churchill January 30th 1964
If there was one event that defined Fox Photos in the mid 60’s it was the Churchill Funeral. After a long illness it became clear in January 1964 that Sir Winston Churchill was nearing death. Large crowds gathered outside his house in Kensington including the press. There were daily bulletins posted outside and a stream of dignitaries entering and living, if I remember rightly, Fox shared this vigil with other photo agencies. He eventually died on 25 January 1964 and it was immediately announced that he would be given a full State Funeral an unusual honour for someone outside the Royal Family but no surprise. The newly crowned Queen made this decision back in 1954. Fox Photo’s had also clearly been planning this for a long time.
Every single photographer and a half dozen assistants (maybe about 25 in all) were all given assignments. The funeral route was very long, starting in Kensington, with the funeral service in St Paul’s Cathedral. If that was no enough, after the service, the coffin would be taken to Tower Pier and then transported to Waterloo Station for it’s final journey by steam train (“The Winston Churchill”) to Blaydon Village in Oxfordshire, for a private family service and burial just before dusk. I was in early on the Saturday because I would be solely responsible for processing the hundreds of films and plates (my boss Mr Lane, did not work Saturdays even for Winston Churchill!). I got a surprise when I was told to go out and help with conveying all the photographers, so I found myself crammed in a Ford Cortina Estate, four photographers and a driver, traveling along the procession route to St Pauls, just 1 hour before it all started. Along The Strand and Fleet Street, the crowds were ten deep (an estimated 335,000 lined the route). I got out four times and helped carry the equipment to each reserved place. The crowds were quiet and sombre and pretty much all dressed for a funeral.
Back at Fox, we (the darkroom staff and office people) watched it all in black and white on a tv someone brought in. The bit I really remembered was on the river where foghorns sounded from all the boats and dozens of gigantic cranes dipped their jibs almost to the water in salute. We still had not seen George Freston for 4 days! At about 11am the films started coming back and I started developing them and never stopped for about 5 hours. Waiting for films and plates to dry could take the best part of an hour! So someone had developed a method to speed this up the films (mostly 120 rolls or 5”x 4” film sheet) were put through methylated spirits (I kid you not) and then carefully wiped with a leather squeegee to remove excess and then put in heated film dryer and were bone dry in 5 minutes. The glass plates were given a quick wipe and then printed soaking wet! For me 2 days short of my 17th birthday, this was all pretty exciting!
Fox Photo’s finest hour?
When I walked in on Monday morning, Les Graves was going through The Sunday and Monday national and regional newspapers looking for our photos. Amazingly well over half the hundreds of photos in all the large special editions were taken by Fox Photographers, we did equally well with the colour shots which sold like hotcakes to Life, Time, Paris Match etc. all around the world.
At about the same time the missing George Freston walked in the office and told us a sad story. In the lead up to the funeral, someone had come up with the bright idea of three or four photographers from different agencies would travel to Blaydon find a house overlooking the cemetery and pay the owner to allow them to secretly snap the final “private interment”. They found such a person and a paid him a large sum of money to hide in the upstairs bedroom or attic. So far so good but with about two hours to go the man got cold feet and said “they will know you used my house, I can’t let you” So he returned the money, they pack up their cameras and watched from a window. George was really upset because the photos would have been beautiful. He described the sun setting behind the scene of the family saying their final goodbye. Of course no British newspaper would touch these photos but they would be sold to foreign publications John Waterman who’s photo assistant I would become later that year was on the ground in St Pauls and took some terrific shots. All of Fox Photo’s negative library ended up with Getty Images and was eventually digitised. They are easy to access and, for a mere £400 or so, they will sell you a large print!
Ray Bellisario, the ascendancy of 35mm and Nikon and the rise of The Paparazzo
In about early 1965, I asked to be made a photographer’s assistant, gentleman in charge of wages and staff matters who’s name I can’t remember, expressed surprise, he told me he had assumed I would eventually take over from Mr Land and spend the rest of my working life developing films. Looking back I don’t blame him, I lacked assertiveness and people took me for granted. Fox Photos was very much about personality and the loudest brashest individuals got on faster than those who were quieter etc.
Shortly after I became assistant to John Waterman who’s previous one left. In my four years at Fox very few employees were promoted especially to photographer. The general advice was “learn what you can then get out!” John Waterman was not a press photographer but mainly an exhibition and commercial photographer. He, like a lot of other young photographers at Fox was not appreciated like he should have been. This meant I was pretty much isolated from the press side for my last 2 years at Fox. However it was obvious that the business was changing and especially in two areas.
The first was the rise of the 35mm format along with high quality cameras from Japan with, unlike Leica and Hasselblad an endless variety of interchangeable lenses, the favourite by far for professionals being Nikon and for some Canon. 35mm had been regarded as far too grainy and not sharp enough when enlarged. In the early 60’s even sports photographers still used Rolleiflex and 5”x4” Speed Graphics. That all changed very quickly especially with Nature, Royal, Showbiz and anything outside of a studio. This also led to the rise of the freelance photographer and the decimation of staff photographers and eventually the fully staffed photo agencies like Fox Photos. However, Fox carried on and everyone who had ever worked at Fox was shocked at its rapid demise.
Near the end of my time at Fox I walked into the office to find someone who had become a household name standing there boasting about his success. It was the infamous Ray Bellisario! Until then I had no idea that he had started his career at Fox Photos as a junior, just like me. He was telling everyone that his famous photo taken in the Caribbean from a small boat of Princess Margaret sitting on a beach in a swimming costume, which I believe he sold exclusively to an Italian magazine paid entirely for his first house.
In the wake of this, amateur photographers with Pentax SLR’s were turning up a Royal events. Film premiers and even posh restaurants and hotels whose staff tipped them off about famous guests. Off course businesses, government departments, the medical profession etc found that they could save a fortune in photo costs with these cameras. Then in late 1966 John Waterman won a major award at The British Press Awards. John did a lot of work for Rank Xerox who made copiers and all sorts of audio/visual equipment. The company set up a scene where a staff member posing as a university lecturer was using a tv video to demonstrate a complicated medical procedure. This involved at the time some tricky technical challenges.
To cut a long story short, someone at Fox entered one of the photos in a category for Industrial and Commercial Photographer of the year, which John won, along with £1,000. One other photographer said to me that he could have invited me to the celebration party and I may be given me a small amount of money to show that I was a small part of it. In early 1967 John confided to me that he was leaving to set up his own business with another photographer, a sales rep named John Fox , who was part of the Fox owners family and a young printer. He said that he was telling me this because I was likely to be left to rot after he left. By coincidence we bumped into the sales manager of another rival photo company called Tella Photography and, wisely as it turned, out joined them as a junior photographer in about May 1967. I pretty much lost touch with Fox and what happened after.
The amazing thing looking back, I was never asked to do a single professional photo for Fox, not even an exhibition stand and the same goes for every other assistant or junior, none of us were promoted. Yet when I went to my new job, within a few weeks they sent me on some jobs and soon realized I was capable of working as a professional photographer. The new company encouraged me to get a driving license and within a year the sales manager and I were driving all over Eastern Europe photographing trade fairs completely unsupervised, I was 21! One of the messengers who started about the same time as me was an enthusiastic but quiet guy named Tim Graham, Tim never worked as an assistant when I was there but he bought a Pentax SLR and spent weekends out looking for photos. I remember he took some photos at a dog show in Hyde Park and they sold them to The Illustrated News. Next time I saw Tim he was photographing The Queen Mother and had clearly left Fox and become an accredited freelance press photographer. He became famous as “Princess Diana’s favourite photographer” and produced a number one massive best selling book on Diana with all the best photos he taken of her.
There are different way’s to learn professional photography but I have never heard of a better way than starting at Fox Photo’s in The 1960’s
-Ends-
Thank You David!
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