C. Cameron Macauley
Encyclopedia
Charles Cameron Macauley (October 20, 1923 – May 17, 2007) was a photographer, filmmaker and educator noted for his prizewinning still photographs, his ethnographic films and his expertise on historic films and photographs. His career spanned over 75 years.
. He was the younger brother of the noted editor and novelist Robie Macauley
. Both boys took an interest in photography, and at the age of ten Macauley purchased his first Norton camera, a prototype of the highly successful Univex Model A, which sold for 39 cents and was among the first inexpensive cameras marketed for the general public.
Macauley also experimented with a folding Kodak Bantam camera, a Foth Derby, a Rolleicord I
, an Argus, a National Graflex and a Miniature Speed Graphic
with a soft focus Verito lens.
By the late 1930s Macauley began doing commercial photography using a 4x5 Speed Graphic. He was briefly employed as a photographer and a photoengraver
for The Ottawa
Times.
Macauley entered Kenyon College
in Gambier, Ohio
in 1942 and in December hitchhiked to New York
to meet Alfred Stieglitz
. Although Stieglitz refused to comment on Macauley’s photographs, he permitted the young man to photograph him reclining on a couch.
and then a graduate course in photolithography
at the Naval Photographic Science Laboratory in Anacostia, Washington, D.C.. He was assigned to a Photographic Squadron which made mosaic maps of all coastlines in the Western Hemisphere
including Greenland
. During the war Macauley completed courses in photogrammetry
, operational mapping, and hydrography
. He later served on board the USS Tangier
in the South China Sea
.
. He went on to study at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute
) under Minor White
. He was employed as an instructor at the University of Wisconsin from 1952 to 1957 and completed his MFA in Creative Photography there in 1958. During this period he worked with Dorothea Lange
, Ansel Adams
, Man Ray
, Imogen Cunningham
, Lisette Model
, Edward Weston
and Edward Steichen
.
in the American Indian Film Project, a project to document Native American culture
s through film and sound recordings. Macauley worked closely with Alfred Kroeber and Samuel Barrett
, writing scripts, filming and recording, and editing many of the 105 films produced during the project, using 16mm color Ektachrome
footage.
He later produced several films on primate behavior with primatologists George B. Schaller, Sherwood Washburn
and Irven DeVore
.
During this period Macauley taught photography at the University of California at Berkeley and at UCSF and became director of the university’s media distribution center for the 9 campuses.
In 1983 he stepped down from this position to found his own media appraisal group, Media Appraisal Consultants. In 1996 he was contracted by the JFK Presidential Library to appraise a series of documentary films which Ernest Hemingway
co-produced, narrated and appeared in.
In 1997 Macauley was appointed by the United States Department of Justice
to appraise the Zapruder film
of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy
. Macauley and other film experts contracted by the US Government assessed the film's value at $750,000. Following arbitration with the Zapruder heirs, the government purchased the film in 1999 for $16 million.
During his career Macauley participated as an awards juror in 85 national and international film festivals and was scriptwriter/cinematographer for 33 films, producer/director of 8 films, and production manager or film animator for 9 films.
He died in California on May 17, 2007.
During the 1940s Macauley took photographs of Anthony Hecht
, Arthur Koestler
, Robert Lowell
, Flannery O'Connor
, Mamaine Paget, John Crowe Ransom
, Peter Taylor
, and Eleanor Ross Taylor
. He is also known for a series of portraits he produced mostly in the 1950s, including photographs of Jack Benny
, Aldous Huxley
, Frank Lloyd Wright
, Count Basie
, Buster Keaton
and John Houseman
.
Minor White considered Macauley’s images "sensitive" and "lyrical" and noted that he could “work with people with considerable insight and power.” Macauley received the American Indian Film Festival
Blue Ribbon Award, the Columbus International Film & Video Festival
Chris Award and the Berlin International Film Festival
Award.
Early life
Charles Cameron Macauley was born on October 20, 1923 in Grand Rapids, MichiganMichigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
. He was the younger brother of the noted editor and novelist Robie Macauley
Robie Macauley
Robie Mayhew Macauley was an editor, novelist and critic whose literary career spanned over 50 years.-Early life:...
. Both boys took an interest in photography, and at the age of ten Macauley purchased his first Norton camera, a prototype of the highly successful Univex Model A, which sold for 39 cents and was among the first inexpensive cameras marketed for the general public.
Macauley also experimented with a folding Kodak Bantam camera, a Foth Derby, a Rolleicord I
Rolleicord
The Rolleicord was a popular medium-format twin lens reflex camera made by Franke & Heidecke between 1933 and 1976. It was a simpler, less expensive version of the high-end Rolleiflex TLR, aimed at amateur photographers who wanted a high-quality camera but could not afford the expensive Rolleiflex...
, an Argus, a National Graflex and a Miniature Speed Graphic
Speed Graphic
Produced by Graflex in Rochester, New York, the Speed Graphic is commonly called the most famous press camera. Although the first Speed Graphic cameras were produced in 1912, production of later versions continued until 1973; with the most significant improvements occurring in 1947 with the...
with a soft focus Verito lens.
By the late 1930s Macauley began doing commercial photography using a 4x5 Speed Graphic. He was briefly employed as a photographer and a photoengraver
Photoengraving
Photoengraving also known as photo-chemical milling is a process of engraving using photographic processing techniques. The full form of photoengraving is photo mechanical process in the graphic arts, used principally for reproducing illustrations. The subject is photographed, and the image is...
for The Ottawa
Ottawa County, Michigan
-Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 238,314 people, 81,662 households, and 61,328 families residing in the county. The population density was 421 people per square mile . There were 86,856 housing units at an average density of 154 per square mile...
Times.
Macauley entered Kenyon College
Kenyon College
Kenyon College is a private liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio, founded in 1824 by Bishop Philander Chase of The Episcopal Church, in parallel with the Bexley Hall seminary. It is the oldest private college in Ohio...
in Gambier, Ohio
Gambier, Ohio
Gambier is a village in Knox County, Ohio, United States. The population was 1,871 at the 2000 census.Gambier is the home of Kenyon College and was named after one of Kenyon College's early benefactors, Lord Gambier....
in 1942 and in December hitchhiked to New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
to meet Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz
Alfred Stieglitz was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his fifty-year career in making photography an accepted art form...
. Although Stieglitz refused to comment on Macauley’s photographs, he permitted the young man to photograph him reclining on a couch.
War years
Macauley returned to Kenyon and enlisted in the Navy in 1943. He completed a 4-month course at the U.S. Naval Photographic School at NAS Pensacola, FloridaPensacola, Florida
Pensacola is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle and the county seat of Escambia County, Florida, United States of America. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 56,255 and as of 2009, the estimated population was 53,752...
and then a graduate course in photolithography
Photolithography
Photolithography is a process used in microfabrication to selectively remove parts of a thin film or the bulk of a substrate. It uses light to transfer a geometric pattern from a photomask to a light-sensitive chemical "photoresist", or simply "resist," on the substrate...
at the Naval Photographic Science Laboratory in Anacostia, Washington, D.C.. He was assigned to a Photographic Squadron which made mosaic maps of all coastlines in the Western Hemisphere
Western Hemisphere
The Western Hemisphere or western hemisphere is mainly used as a geographical term for the half of the Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian and east of the Antimeridian , the other half being called the Eastern Hemisphere.In this sense, the western hemisphere consists of the western portions...
including Greenland
Greenland
Greenland is an autonomous country within the Kingdom of Denmark, located between the Arctic and Atlantic Oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Though physiographically a part of the continent of North America, Greenland has been politically and culturally associated with Europe for...
. During the war Macauley completed courses in photogrammetry
Photogrammetry
Photogrammetry is the practice of determining the geometric properties of objects from photographic images. Photogrammetry is as old as modern photography and can be dated to the mid-nineteenth century....
, operational mapping, and hydrography
Hydrography
Hydrography is the measurement of the depths, the tides and currents of a body of water and establishment of the sea, river or lake bed topography and morphology. Normally and historically for the purpose of charting a body of water for the safe navigation of shipping...
. He later served on board the USS Tangier
USS Tangier (AV-8)
The second USS Tangier was a cargo ship, converted to a seaplane tender in the United States Navy during World War II.Tangier laid down under a Maritime Commission contract as Sea Arrow on 18 March 1939 at Oakland, California by Moore Dry Dock Company; launched on 15 September 1939; sponsored by...
in the South China Sea
South China Sea
The South China Sea is a marginal sea that is part of the Pacific Ocean, encompassing an area from the Singapore and Malacca Straits to the Strait of Taiwan of around...
.
Education
Macauley returned to Kenyon College in 1946 and graduated in 1949 with a B.A. in English. As a student during the summer of 1947, accredited as a foreign correspondent, he traveled through Central America and photographed the events of revolution-torn Costa RicaCosta Rica
Costa Rica , officially the Republic of Costa Rica is a multilingual, multiethnic and multicultural country in Central America, bordered by Nicaragua to the north, Panama to the southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the west and the Caribbean Sea to the east....
. He went on to study at the California School of Fine Arts (now the San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute
San Francisco Art Institute is a school of higher education in contemporary art with the main campus in the Russian Hill district of San Francisco, California. Its graduate center is in the Dogpatch neighborhood. The private, non-profit institution is accredited by WASC and is a member of the...
) under Minor White
Minor White
Minor Martin White was an American photographer born in Minneapolis, Minnesota.White earned a degree in botany with a minor in English from the University of Minnesota in 1933. His first creative efforts were in poetry, as he took five years thereafter to complete a sequence of 100 sonnets while...
. He was employed as an instructor at the University of Wisconsin from 1952 to 1957 and completed his MFA in Creative Photography there in 1958. During this period he worked with Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange
Dorothea Lange was an influential American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration...
, Ansel Adams
Ansel Adams
Ansel Easton Adams was an American photographer and environmentalist, best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West, especially in Yosemite National Park....
, Man Ray
Man Ray
Man Ray , born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal...
, Imogen Cunningham
Imogen Cunningham
Imogen Cunningham was an American photographer known for her photography of botanicals, nudes and industry.-Life and career:...
, Lisette Model
Lisette Model
Lisette Model was an Austrian-born American photographer.Lisette Model was born Elise Felic Amelie Stern in Vienna, Austria...
, Edward Weston
Edward Weston
Edward Henry Weston was a 20th century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers…" and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." Over the course of his forty-year career Weston photographed an increasingly expansive set of...
and Edward Steichen
Edward Steichen
Edward J. Steichen was an American photographer, painter, and art gallery and museum curator. He was the most frequently featured photographer in Alfred Stieglitz' groundbreaking magazine Camera Work during its run from 1903 to 1917. Steichen also contributed the logo design and a custom typeface...
.
Career
Macauley became interested in anthropological, primatological, archeological and ethnographic films and from 1956 to 1964 was involved with William HeickWilliam Heick
William Heick is a San Francisco based photographer and filmmaker. He is best known for his ethnographic photographs and documentary films of North American Indian cultures. W.R. Heick served as producer-director and chief cinematographer for the of the University of California, Berkeley on their...
in the American Indian Film Project, a project to document Native American culture
Indigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
s through film and sound recordings. Macauley worked closely with Alfred Kroeber and Samuel Barrett
Samuel Barrett
Samuel Alfred Barrett was an anthropologist and linguist who studied Native American peoples. He began his career at UC Berkeley, and received the first doctorate in anthropology from that university's new anthropology program in 1908....
, writing scripts, filming and recording, and editing many of the 105 films produced during the project, using 16mm color Ektachrome
Ektachrome
Ektachrome is a brand name owned by Kodak for a range of transparency, still, and motion picture films available in most formats, including 35 mm and sheet sizes to 11x14 inch size. Ektachrome has a distinctive look that became familiar to many readers of National Geographic, which used it...
footage.
He later produced several films on primate behavior with primatologists George B. Schaller, Sherwood Washburn
Sherwood Washburn
Sherwood Larned Washburn , nicknamed "Sherry", was an American physical anthropologist and pioneer in the field of primatology, opening it to study of primates in their natural habitats...
and Irven DeVore
Irven DeVore
Irven DeVore is an anthropologist and evolutionary biologist, and Curator of Primatology at Harvard University's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology...
.
During this period Macauley taught photography at the University of California at Berkeley and at UCSF and became director of the university’s media distribution center for the 9 campuses.
In 1983 he stepped down from this position to found his own media appraisal group, Media Appraisal Consultants. In 1996 he was contracted by the JFK Presidential Library to appraise a series of documentary films which Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Hemingway
Ernest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
co-produced, narrated and appeared in.
In 1997 Macauley was appointed by the United States Department of Justice
United States Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice , is the United States federal executive department responsible for the enforcement of the law and administration of justice, equivalent to the justice or interior ministries of other countries.The Department is led by the Attorney General, who is nominated...
to appraise the Zapruder film
Zapruder film
The Zapruder film is a silent, color motion picture sequence shot by private citizen Abraham Zapruder with a home-movie camera, asU.S. President John F...
of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
. Macauley and other film experts contracted by the US Government assessed the film's value at $750,000. Following arbitration with the Zapruder heirs, the government purchased the film in 1999 for $16 million.
During his career Macauley participated as an awards juror in 85 national and international film festivals and was scriptwriter/cinematographer for 33 films, producer/director of 8 films, and production manager or film animator for 9 films.
He died in California on May 17, 2007.
Photographic works
Macauley’s photographic skill was first recognized for a series of black and white stills taken in San Francisco in the early 1950s http://dawsonbooks.com/viewgallery.php?ID=7, for example "Morning Rush Hour, San Francisco, 1950."During the 1940s Macauley took photographs of Anthony Hecht
Anthony Hecht
Anthony Evan Hecht was an American poet. His work combined a deep interest in form with a passionate desire to confront the horrors of 20th century history, with the Second World War, in which he fought, and the Holocaust being recurrent themes in his work.-Early years:Hecht was born in New York...
, Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler
Arthur Koestler CBE was a Hungarian author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria...
, Robert Lowell
Robert Lowell
Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV was an American poet, considered the founder of the confessional poetry movement. He was appointed the sixth Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress where he served from 1947 until 1948...
, Flannery O'Connor
Flannery O'Connor
Mary Flannery O'Connor was an American novelist, short-story writer and essayist. An important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries...
, Mamaine Paget, John Crowe Ransom
John Crowe Ransom
John Crowe Ransom was an American poet, essayist, magazine editor, and professor.-Life:...
, Peter Taylor
Peter Matthew Hillsman Taylor
For other people named Peter Taylor, see Peter Taylor.Peter Matthew Hillsman Taylor was a U.S. author and writer.-Biography:...
, and Eleanor Ross Taylor
Eleanor Ross Taylor
Eleanor Ross Taylor is an American poet who has published six collections from 1960 to 2009. Her work received little recognition until 1998, but since then has received several of the major poetry prizes...
. He is also known for a series of portraits he produced mostly in the 1950s, including photographs of Jack Benny
Jack Benny
Jack Benny was an American comedian, vaudevillian, and actor for radio, television, and film...
, Aldous Huxley
Aldous Huxley
Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and one of the most prominent members of the famous Huxley family. Best known for his novels including Brave New World and a wide-ranging output of essays, Huxley also edited the magazine Oxford Poetry, and published short stories, poetry, travel...
, Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright
Frank Lloyd Wright was an American architect, interior designer, writer and educator, who designed more than 1,000 structures and completed 500 works. Wright believed in designing structures which were in harmony with humanity and its environment, a philosophy he called organic architecture...
, Count Basie
Count Basie
William "Count" Basie was an American jazz pianist, organist, bandleader, and composer. Basie led his jazz orchestra almost continuously for nearly 50 years...
, Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton
Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton was an American comic actor, filmmaker, producer and writer. He was best known for his silent films, in which his trademark was physical comedy with a consistently stoic, deadpan expression, earning him the nickname "The Great Stone Face".Keaton was recognized as the...
and John Houseman
John Houseman
John Houseman was a Romanian-born British-American actor and film producer who became known for his highly publicized collaboration with director Orson Welles from their days in the Federal Theatre Project through to the production of Citizen Kane...
.
Minor White considered Macauley’s images "sensitive" and "lyrical" and noted that he could “work with people with considerable insight and power.” Macauley received the American Indian Film Festival
American Indian Film Festival
The American Indian Film Festival is an annual non-profit film festival in San Francisco. It is the world's oldest venue dedicated to Native American films and prepared the way for the 1979 formation of the American Indian Film Institute....
Blue Ribbon Award, the Columbus International Film & Video Festival
Columbus International Film & Video Festival
The Columbus International Film + Video Festival is a Columbus, Ohio, USA annual film festival which is designed to encourage and promote the use of film and video in all forms of education and communication...
Chris Award and the Berlin International Film Festival
Berlin International Film Festival
The Berlin International Film Festival , also called the Berlinale, is one of the world's leading film festivals and most reputable media events. It is held in Berlin, Germany. Founded in West Berlin in 1951, the festival has been celebrated annually in February since 1978...
Award.
External links
- The Golden Decade: Photography at the California School of Fine Arts, 1945-55; Selected photographs from The Golden Decade..
- Film Study: A Guide to Film Analysis and Appreciation by C. Cameron Macauley (1957).
- Women's Film: A New Category in EMC Films, 1973-1974, by C. Cameron Macauley (1973).
- "Leslie W. Boyer, James F. Guinane, Charles C. Macauley: Our Final Salutes," by Guy Miller, The Fossil, Volume 104, Number 1, Whole Number 334, Glenview, Illinois, October 2007.
- C. Cameron Macauley
- Karel Reisz, Gavin Millar, C. Cameron Macauley, "The Technique of Film Editing," Film Quarterly, April 1969, Vol. 22, No. 3, Pages 50–55 , DOI 10.1525/fq.1969.22.3.04a00130; Posted online on August 9, 2007.
- C. Cameron Macauley: San Francisco Photographs
- George Snyder, "Photographer Captures Spirit Of Indian Life," San Francisco Chronicle, Friday, October 30, 1998, p. EB-1.