{"id":32957,"date":"2025-12-13T01:03:41","date_gmt":"2025-12-13T05:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/?p=32957"},"modified":"2025-12-12T23:44:02","modified_gmt":"2025-12-13T03:44:02","slug":"an-accidental-tourist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/an-accidental-tourist\/","title":{"rendered":"an accidental tourist"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Bob’s 1949 Speed Graphic and a new fangled electronic flash (Multiblitz)<\/p><\/div>\n

Toronto<\/strong>. As a kid, I often thought about seeing Europe. Some youths took physical action to do so. In the 1950s, a young news photographer from Toronto found himself in Germany to review the Canadian Military presence there when he was abruptly told to drop every thing and hit the Atlantic shores of France – Marilyn Bell<\/a> was about to swim the Channel – the youngest person to make the attempt.<\/p>\n

Along with Bob was his trusty Speed Graphic and Multiblitz electronic flash. \u00a0The story is told by Bob to Bill Belier in Bill’s column “A Treasure From My Collection … “.<\/p>\n

Bill begins the story, “For some time I\u2019ve been pestering our editor, Bob Lansdale,\u00a0to ‘come clean’ and tell me something about his career as a\u00a0young press photographer\u2026 the equipment that he used, and\u00a0some of the major stories that he covered in his ten-year association with Federal Newsphotos of Canada.<\/p>\n

“As a preliminary, Bob\u00a0let me have access to his well organized print files of hundreds\u00a0of national events that he had covered. One particular file caught\u00a0my attention and took me back forty-five years\u2026 but this is\u00a0Bob\u2019s story, so let him continue as he reminisced with me.<\/p>\n

\u201c’Press photography’, recalls Bob, ‘has come a long way since the early days of flash powder and glass plates when it was\u00a0a rarity to capture action and an instant of history. Today [c2000] the press boys klack off a full roll of 35mm film with their Nikons\u00a0and motor drives so that every <\/b>instant is covered; their built-in\u00a0mini-strobes keeping pace with the camera\u2019s chattering shutter.<\/p>\n

“By the mid 1950\u2019s things had progressed to a higher level but\u00a0still shy of the technology enjoyed today. In the summer of 1955, I was touring the Canadian Forces Bases in\u00a0Germany as a photo journalist for a\u00a0Toronto press agency, Federal Newsphotos.<\/p>\n

“I received an urgent message to drop\u00a0everything and head for Calais, France to\u00a0join the Marilyn Bell crew as she made\u00a0ready to become, at age 17, the youngest\u00a0person to swim the English Channel. The\u00a0swim was sponsored by the Toronto\u00a0Telegram and when I arrived I was\u00a0received with cool reservation as assignments in Toronto usually identified me\u00a0with the rival Toronto Star.<\/p>\n

“When the Star\u00a0refused to make use of me (they had their own men on the scene)\u00a0a deal was worked out for me to act as backup to the official photographer, Jack Judges, a veteran lensman for the Tely.\u201d …<\/p>\n

[In those days, the Tely (Telegram) was the more conservative of the three main dailies in the big smoke – we read the Tely daily and my grand parents read the Star. Dad occasionally read the Globe …]. Members read all of Bill’s column and saw the many photos contained in the story \u00a0in the issue 26-1 pdf file on the free, members-only DVD\/thumb drive. See above and at right to join, Email any membership questions to member@phsc.ca<\/a>.<\/p>\n

NB. The post title is a riff on the acclaimed 1988 movie, “The Accidental Tourist<\/a>” (of course Bill’s story has nothing to do with the movie plot …).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toronto. As a kid, I often thought about seeing Europe. Some youths took physical action to do so. In the 1950s, a young news photographer from Toronto found himself in Germany to review the Canadian Military presence there when he … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1944],"tags":[398,755,520],"class_list":["post-32957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","tag-camera","tag-flash","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32957","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32957"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32957\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32963,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32957\/revisions\/32963"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/phsc.ca\/camera\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}