A Monkey's Revenge - My Blog

Typecast

I've gotten out of the habit of regular blog postings. The problem is that a lot of the stuff I photograph these days can't be pre-published on here. So by the time it is published it's often a month or so ago from when I did the job and I've moved on to the next thing.

So I've decided on general rambling posts instead-here is the first one!

I'm so old that when I started in newspapers they were printed using hot metal press- paper in contact with metal set in a 'stone'.

This image is of a 'stone' at Oxford Uni Press. Fancy type. Not the same as was generally used on newspapers.

When I first started on an evening newspaper, it was located in an old workhouse. To get to the photographic department you had first to negotiate the print room with it's stones and machinery that clinked and clanked as the hot metal cooled down after that night's print run.

It was traditional for photographers to hide amongst the machinery on the newbie's first night duty and throw bits of the metal type near where they would walk to get to the stairs. Of course the old lags had laid the ground well in the first place by telling tales of ghosts to the newbie in the afternoon.

Another trick was to stick a white lab coat in the darkroom, complete with broom handle and old newspapers stuffed inside to make it more lifelike, then illuminate this with old PF flashbulbs linked to a battery and a thin tripwire or home-made device that went off when the poor unfortunate victim opened a door. It's a wonder more photographers didn't drop dead of a heart attack on being presented with a flash going off in the dark and a nicely lit ghostly apparition!

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