Brian and Gordon camera assistants at Fox photos standing in as models, with a prototype glass fibre bicycle taken for Hercules Cycles at the Earls Court cycle show 1954.
Brian Goodman on the right with Eric Willmot FRPSFIBP in 1972 before the FT awards, where they both won awards. Both publicity photographers in the Nuclear industry.
A young Brian standing in for a lighting check on a portrait session.
Fox staff enjoy a beach break whilst working at the Haverford West agricultural show. Photograph taken by “Jake” Jacob’s at Saundersfoot beach near Tenby 1955
Brian this week on his farm, he will be turning 89 in June!
The PPHP has been contacted by Brian Goodman another Fox Photos staffer who spotted our post covering David Newman’s account of his time at Fox Photos
Brian worked at the Tudor Street and then Farringdon Road offices of Fox Photos between 1952 and 1956 – he sent us this note [and photos, Thanks!] of that time:
I read with great interest the article by David Newman about his time at Fox Photos and the names he mentioned. I worked at Fox from summer 1952 until called up for national service Jan 1956, joining the R.A.F as a photographer.
I started with Les Graves as his assistant on the weekly and monthly sales for 18 months.After I had been working the first few weeks one of the press photographers Reggie Speller went to Lynmouth ln Devon on holiday, at the time of the tragic floods. He had his camera with him and started shooting photographs putting the exposed glass plates on the train to Paddington. These were collected by a motorcyclist and rushed to Fox for processing. The photographs were used by many national newspapers plus monthly and weekly magazines. As I was new to Fox it was interesting to see the agency working on a rush assignment another highlight was working with Les on the Queens coronation. When magazines like Picture Post had extensive coverage and were in demand because many families did not have televisions they would have to wait several days to see the newsreels at the local cinemas, many neighbours gathered around the few television sets on this special occasion.
Because of National Service there was always a turnover of young men. Ray came back to visit during his service time and was telling me he wanted to concentrate on taking photographs of the royal family this was because we watched the success of Stan Meager a young photographer, as a young press photographer he had a tip that the Queen went early morning horse riding in Windsor great park. He went with his camera and managed to get the pictures because of this he was offered a staff position on a national newspaper.
Working at Fox Photos as an assistant to press photographers.
Press photographers worked on their own but occasionally they asked for an assistant because of special equipment that they needed, sports photography was an example.
I worked with Reggie Speller on several of these- the Derby at Epsom Downs and cricket at the Oval and at Lords, in all cases you could not get close to the action we used a special camera approx 5ft. long, a large wooden box painted black with a lens at the front and a ground glass screen at the rear for composition and focus this was hinged out of the way and replaced by a sensitive glass plate. Exposure was made by a roller blind traveling horizontally in front of the glass plate, the blind had an adjustable slot to control the amount of light making the exposure the equipment needed tripods for support and cases for glass plates,
this needed an assistant to help carry the load.
As a photographer a highlight for me?
I was told to go to the International Oil Conference and Exhibition at Olympia in London and go to the Harwell Research Laboratories stand. The exhibition hall was in complete darkness just a small glimmer of light from the roof, all the delegates were at the conference. I found the stand, the only one with lights.
I walked on to the stand and found a scientist from Harwell, on the stand was a large model of a North Sea oil rig and core samples from the sea bed. After a few moments we were joined by Sir John Hill who explained we were expecting visitors. After a while I said I would look outside – the hallway was empty but I spotted a couple in the distance as they became closer I was shocked that I could see it was Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip without an entourage. I kept my camera down, they came right up to me and the Queen asked if I would like to take her photograph. in complete surprise I explained if she could spare me a few moments I would like to take 4 photographs on the Harwell stand, she looked across to Prince Phillip and said that they could. l said I would lead the way and do the introductions I used the oil rig model as my foreground looking across to the
V I P party who were absorbed hearing about the research.looking back this was clearly arranged so that everybody was in place it was still a surprise and completely unexpected.
A photograph of chief press photographer Gerry Hammond talking to the pilot while waiting for the weather for aerial photography over Dorset.
