Niuglo's Huge Camera! Mexican Pin up Photographer for Vea Magazine

It's Niuglo's huge camera!  Largely a mystery, the staff photographer of Pin up magazine VEA was an unrecognized master. In this cover photograph from 1954, he places a model next to a massive antique camera. He appear to have been staff photographer for VEA magazine from 1941 to 1954. He also sold work to Star Magazine. Niuglo is likely a palindrome of his surname Olguin. He also produced and sold postcards of beautiful Mexican Women, possibly at tourist shops and through the mail. 
VEA magazine (Mexico) 1954 collection Jim Linderman.


El fotógrafo personal de Pin up revista VEA era un maestro desconocido Niuglo. En esta fotografía de portada desde 1954, pone un modelo junto a una antigua cámara masiva. Parecía haber sido fotógrafo para VEA revista desde 1941 a 1954. También vendió la obra a la revista Star.
Niuglo es probablemente un palíndromo de su apellido Olguin. Curarmepara produce y vende postales de hermosas mujeres mexicanas, posiblemente en tiendas para turistas y a través del correo.

Camera Gals ! Nightclub Photographers and the Hindenburg. Sam Shere Master Photographer.

Sam Shere 1942 for See Picture Thrills Magazine

Sam Shere 1942 for See Picture Thrills Magazine

Sam Shere was a master photographer. You might not know the name, but you know one of his works.  Think "OH, the humanity…"  Mr. Shere took the well-known photograph of the Hindenburg disaster.  Apparently the International Center of Photography owns the original, as their PAGE HERE indicates it was purchased in 2003.  Iconic…and if a photo can be described as gripping, this one qualifies.  The photographer is quoted as saying "I had two shots in my big speed graphic but I didn't have the time to get it up to my eye. I literally shot from the hip--it was over so fast there was nothing else to do."  Amazing.  There was also newsreel footage of the disaster.

A working photographer gets up in the morning to capture events which he can sell, but I believe Mr. Shere loved everything about his  work.  The excitement, the equipment and using his skill to create art.  As seen here, he took a few pictures OF cameras too.  The other images here were published in the second issue of SEE Picture Thrills in 1942, three years after the Hindenburg.  Just two from the feature which was titled "Camera Girls Take Over" and documented women working as nightclub photographers during World War Two.  Specifically Shirley Seiler and Lillian Johnson.  Articles during the war about women taking care of business on the Homefront were not unusual, but the piece is hardly the typical "Rose the Riveter" story.  6 photographs of the women photographers at work, developing images and sliding them into souvenir folders for the patrons.

Shown in the photo above (cropped, as it is printed in the original magazine larger then a scanner can handle) are the legs and equipment of the intrepid supper club women photographers.

Although the article was titled "Camera Girls Flash Trim Limbs: Photogenic Nightowls (sic) Don't Give Two Hoots for the Traditional Birdie" this is no traditional puff-piece.  The photos are crisp and striking, and not just for the "limbs."  It documents a little known photography profession which would be worthy of a museum show. Souvenir nightspot photos have not had an institutional showing that I know of.  The profession, of course, has been virtually eliminated by the images taken by smart phones.  A few photo journalists ARE still at work.  For example, some wait at the finish line and sell images to marathoners as they finish.  Still, the once popular "industry" taking place at nightclubs all over the country is largely lost. 

The hard-working women here were creating memories in hard copy, not mere digital blips. 

Interestingly, one of the most handsome websites on the photographer appears to have been made for a class assignment.  It reveals Sam Shere had been sent to the location of the Hindenburg fire to capture "society type" photographs.  Indeed, it appears he barely made it there in time.  Just another shoot.

Additional photographs by Sam Shere can be seen at the Getty Images Life Magazine pictures site HERE and the Corbis site HERE.  Perhaps the best biography of the photographer is HERE on a website which indicates that despite taking one of the most recognizable images in history he died virtually alone and penniless.  Perhaps he should have taken more photographs of limbs.

NOTE:  The magazine SEE PICTURE THRILLS was published by Collegian Press starting in 1942 and the copyright on the magazine was renewed apparently in the 1970s, but I do know know if they retained the rights to the original images sold by free-lancers.  As far as I can tell, there is no official website or source for the photographs shown here, or for the photographer.   

Nightclub Photography Club DeLisa Hard-boiled Nostalgia Evidence Blackmail and Dames with a Camera

Club DeLisa in Chicago's Bronzeville was THE place for African-American floor shows and Jazz during the 1950s. It was run by four brothers and presented the finest in African-American entertainment (all the while allowing gambling in the basement.) From Albert Ammons to Joe Williams. "The Harlem of Chicago"


Like to be your own boss? Consider the Nightclub photographer. One of the few photography genres seemingly without scholarship or museum shows (If you know of one, let me know.) They were and are often women (Noted photojournalist Ruth Orkin started as one, so did a female character in Dick Tracy) Weegee also worked the clubs.


I could probably compile a long list of photographers who started out with a speed-graphic and a tip tray, but I'll leave it up to a doctoral student needing a project.


Big operators in famous clubs printed their own cardboard frames to sleeve the photos. One could go late...folks are more likely to spend the money for a portrait after a few drinks. They appear in hard-boiled novels all the time...being in the club affords them opportunities for both evidence and blackmail. Many a plot turns on the appearance of a "surprise" photograph taken by a pretty dame with a shutter. Nightclub photographers also have provided many historical images of performers as they often had the only camera in the club.


As popular today as it was in the 1950's, I am not sure how long it will last. Whether the cellphone camera will kill the nightclub photographer is questionable...there is glamour missing in a digital picture, and If I were a young photographer starting out today, I would get a big camera with a collapsible bellows and carry it around clubs.


Anonymous Original Nightclub Photo Club DeLisa circa 1950 with original sleeve
Collection Jim Linderman

Dull Tool Dim Bulb Books in print HERE

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Monsters of the Gilded Age: The Photographs of Chas. Eisenmann Book Review from the Past #2

I am not going to open a debate on the appropriateness of circus sideshow freak photographs. To be sure they are among the most striking of images and these photos were taken so the performers could sell them for a dime each to the audience...so who can begrudge the process? 100 years later Diane Arbus took similar photographs, but rather than being used as souvenirs or trade cards, they made her career. Never one to shy from the disturbing, overlooked or neglected, I am attracted by the taboo of these images, and they still manage to make the desperate attempts of contemporary artists to "shock" pale by comparison.

Continuing to review books which have been forgotten or deserve another look, this is the fairly obscure "Monsters of the Gilded Age: The Photographs of Chas. Eisenmann" by Michael Mitchell. Published in Canada in 1979, and likely a small edition, it is expensive today on the used book market but available.

Despite the author's intensive research, more is known about the performers shown than the photographer. Eisenmann worked with his wife on the Bowery in New York City for ten years and specialized in theatrical portraits. He then turned the studio over to Frank Wendt, (a photographer I am profiling and intend to publish a book on before long) then vanished. By 1904 he was gone. What IS known remains in the photographs, sharp, crisp, perfectly posed and lit pictures of some of the most remarkable humans ever captured by camera. Mitchell describes the environment of the working portrait photographer in the Cartes de visite and Cabinet Card era (Eisenmann worked in both) and produces a 110 page book with an example of the artist's work on nearly every page. Each performer is identified and discussed thoroughly, and while it might not be a book you will leave on the coffee table, it certainly will attract interest if you choose to share it.

The book is out of print unfortunately, and though it was reprinted with a slightly different title in 2003, I can only find used copies for sale. Images by Eisenmann turn up on ebay frequently and many have been reproduced on the web.

Striking Photographs by John Stryker. Fast Modern Action Pictures of the Rodeo

The modest little postcard folder I found here opens up a striking world...Stryker's world! A regional photographer who deserves to be rediscovered, John A. Stryker obtained his first camera in 1916 while occupied as a penmanship teacher and was soon attracted to more adventurous activity. Stryker began photographing the local cowboys and rodeos. I don't know what type of lens he used, but these images would almost qualify him to take pictures in a war zone with combat pay. Kodak thought so as well and used one of his pictures in an early advertising campaign. Stryker also used his voice to advantage at the rodeo. Blessed with a barreling baritone larger than those rodeo clowns hid in, it is said he could be heard 3/4 of a mile away without a microphone. So while taking pictures, he became a rodeo announcer and was soon hired by no less than the Ringling Brothers to announce acts!

After years traveling with the circus, Stryker retired to Fort Worth and spent the rest of his life taking pictures. In addition to many postcards, he sold images for restaurant place mats and through mail order. The images here are from "Stryker's Famous Rodeo Folder Number Three" and the postcard book became a catalog for selling enlargements at $1.00 each, but "if special, made to order glossy prints are wanted for reproduction, advertising and publicity" one is instructed to write for prices. He sold photos up to 40 x 60 inches in size and would "travel anywhere to make up-to-date pictures of rodeos, ranches, historical sites...and individual poses of fine cattle, horses or mounted people" and at one time, his inventory contained 1200 photos.

Stryker's work is held in the Lamb collection at the National Cowboy Museum and in thousands of postcard collections. I based much of the above on the history provided in Buffalo County Historical Society newsletter by Mardith Anderson.

"Famous Stryker's Collection of Modern Fast Action Pictures" postcard folder circa 1950 Collection Jim Linderman

Frank Wendt Sideshow Photography Master of a Neglected Nature

Frank Wendt has always been unfairly placed in the shadow of Sideshow Freak photographer Charles Eisenmann, his mentor. Wendt took over the Eisenmann studio on the Bowery in 1893 and ran it for five years before moving it to New Jersey. He continued making pictures there for a number of years, some quite extraordinary. In 1979, just as interest in collecting circus freak photos was rising (in part as interest in Diane Arbus was rising as well) a book on Eisenmann was published which dismissed Wendt's work as "perfunctory" and that the production of those years has all but been "obliterated." Au contraire! As we are just learning, MANY exceptional images remain. The photos here are certainly not obliterated.

Wendt specialized in the unusual, of course as you can see. But he had a wider clientele than Eisenmann. He shot all manner of performers, not just the strange. In fact, some of his most beautiful work is normal looking actors and child performers, who would use his cabinet card photographs as trade cards, mementos and such, frequently selling them to admirers for a dime each. Often the performers autographed the cards on the reverse, personalizing them to fans and the freaked. In the case of the carnival performers, vital statistics were often provided though frequently exaggerated. In fact, Wendt would take his pictures to emphasize the particular trait or deformity being marketed. As traveling shows passed through New York and New Jersey, they would stop to replenish their stock. Sometimes Wendt would republish Eisenmann's work on his own cards, but frequently a new photo was taken, and the same performers often appear in later pictures, with different imprints or logos on the cards.

I have posted work by Frank Wendt on this site before, they are worth looking at. As research continues, I plan to expand on the story with a book and exhibition.

Frank Wendt Five Original Cabinet Card Photographs circa 1890-1900 Collection Jim Linderman

SOON I WILL MOVE THESE TO THE WONDROUS WORLD OF FRANK WENDT
A site I am constructing.