Herbert Quick: Photographer
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Quick's Camera

Quick's preparation for making cameras also commenced early. He was five or six years old when he would visit an uncle, a craftsman carpenter who worked in the winter repairing circus wagons and other things that would be shipped to him from the likes of Ringling Brothers. Quick was taught the fundamentals of using chisel and hand saw, as well as other nuances of woodworking. Over the years this experience translated into a variety of projects, including tampering with cameras to repair them or to alter them to improve performance, and eventually to making cameras to meet his requirements.

When L.F. Deardorff, an American camera manufacturing company that had for many years made fine 8 x l0's and 5 x 7's, went out of business, Quick decided to make cameras in earnest, calling the operation The 19th Century Camera Company. He would make them available to those who could satisfy him of their interest and ability to use one. "I feel that if I am going to go through the trouble of making a hand-made camera, put a lot of my time in the thing," Quick says, "it should go to the person who has the ability to use it. Therefore, I require a portfolio be submitted before anyone can have the privilege of buying one. So far I've only sold one camera."

Quick secured permission from R.H. Phillips and Sons of Midland, Michigan, to use their basic design in the manufacture of his camera. While the Phillips camera was made chiefly of carbon fiber and wood, the Quick camera would be made of fine wood. To the surprise of Phillips and Sons, both the Phillips camera and the Quick wood camera weighed exactly nine pounds, a tribute to Mr. Quick's ability as both woodworker and machinist. Moreover, the Quick camera featured a longer bellows by four inches to accommodate the use of longer lenses. Five such cameras remain in his possession today, one of which he uses for his own work.

He no longer makes cameras, given the time and effort required, and concentrates instead on printing the negatives he didn't have time to print while working as photographer for the University of California, Riverside.


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