"I feel like an artist": A Crown Graphic camera's impact on a contemporary photographer

When the Crown Graphic camera first arrived on the field reporting scene, it was ethereal. Compact with its 4x5 size and a lens protected by its pop-open cover, the Crown Graphic camera solidified its place as an efficient, press photography camera in the 20th century.

An eclectic, life-capturing device with a tedious beginning, the Crown Graphic camera debuted in 1947 after the original 1902 invention of the Graflex camera and the Speed Graphic’s 1912 introduction by the Folmer Schwing Company, according to Mike Rosin, author of “Crown of American Cameras.”

Glossy portraits, high-profile crime and the transgressions of World War II made press cameras a point of modern interest in the 20th century.

“They were tough, well designed, enormously versatile and capable of exacting results under the most difficult circumstances,” according to T. Rand Collins MD, the author of “Selecting a vintage camera IV: The Baby Pacemaker Crown Graphic.”

Reminiscent of a past age with its artsy, stainless-steel aesthetic, what does the Crown Graphic Camera mean for modern-day photographers?

Arthur H. Trickett-Wile, a San Antonio post-baccalaureate photojournalism student at Western Kentucky University, said large format cameras don’t lend themselves to speed. Trickett-Wile, 24, said cameras like the Crown Graphic forces photographers to slow down.

“The top line cameras, you can take 30 frames a second. With this camera, you can take, like, one frame a minute or two if you’re really pushing, so you really have to know what you’re looking at,” he said. “There’s no screw ups, and it’s really nice.”

Trickett-Wile, who works for the College Heights Herald, Western Kentucky University’s newsmagazine, said that while he owns a Crown Graphic, he would never use it for newsgathering purposes.

“It is completely impractical. There’s little to no news use for it, but a lot of photographers who have been doing news or photojournalism, they have these now because there’s something romantic about doing what they used to, or really slowing down when they’re taking, you know, thousands of frames a day,” he said.

For Trickett-Wile, whose portfolio includes documenting the 2017 Catalan independence protests, the art of using a Crown Graphic camera is symbolic of his experience learning darkroom photography, which he said is far from contemporary news camerawork. Photo provided by Trickett-Wile.

Trickett-Wile, who earned a degree in Studio Art with a Concentration in Photography from Hendrix College, said he used his Crown Graphic for “mostly fun stuff.”

“When I’m wanting to take really gorgeous, soft-looking, artistic photographs that feel like they’re from another time, I know that I can always pull that out and go out in the woods somewhere and really consider a photograph, hunt for one for an hour, and then take one frame and go home,” he said.

He said the process of using a Crown Graphic, especially when shooting portraits, is “intimate.”

“When you have a piece of film, it really matters, and so you slow down, you really talk with your subject, and you’re forced to sit there. You have to really light the hell out of it,” he said. “You’re paying probably dollars apiece for this film, so it really matters. It’s a very sort of romantic time-gone-by practice.”

A slab of black and white film for an antique Crown Graphic runs between $1 to $3 U.S. dollars, but it takes a limited amount of shots.

So, what legacy does a 76-year-old camera have in the digital age?

“Probably a symbol for the press corps, and now it’s a symbol for, like, you know, sort of really moody artists or people who are yearning for something past,” Trickett-Wile said.

He spoke of photographers like Weegee, the pseudonym of Arthur Fellig, a crime photographer known to arrive on graphic scenes with wicked, omniscient-like speed.

Contemporary users of the 4x5 include Los Angeles-based photographer, Jay L. Clandenin, who famously used one to shoot Olympic portraits in 2012. Clandenin, a trained photojournalist, has spent 14 years working for the Los Angeles Times, capturing portraits encapsulating the personalities of entertainment celebrities from Lana Del Rey to Charlize Theron, according to his LinkedIn page.

A digitally-photographed and inverted negative of wind shaped dunes at Monahans Sandhills State Park in Monahans, Texas. Shot by Arthur H. Trickett-Wile in December 2018 with a Graflex Crown Graphic and a 135mm f4.8 Optar lens on 4-by-5 TMAX 100 film. Caption provided by Trickett-Wile.

For Trickett-Wile, whose portfolio includes documenting the 2017 Catalan independence protests, the art of using a Crown Graphic camera is symbolic of his experience learning darkroom photography, which he said is far from contemporary news camerawork.

“I feel like an artist, and it reminds me of how I originally learned photography, which is in a darkroom developing my own film,” he said.