Camera Owner

Bi-monthly British hobbyist photography periodical 1964-1968

Camera Owner

Camera Owner magazine, cover of the first issue, 1964

Editor| Bill Jay
Former editors| Jürgen Schadeberg
Frequency| Bi-monthly
Format| A4
Publisher| Davpet Ltd., then Coo Press
Founder| Sylvester Stein
Founded| 1964
First issue| 1 June 1964; 61 years ago (1964-06-01)
Final issue
Number| 31 October 1967 (1967-10-31)
no. 40, October 1967
Country| United Kingdom
Based in| London
Language| English
OCLC| 503854539

Camera Owner (1964–1968) was a bi-monthly British hobbyist photography magazine founded in 1964. In 1968 it evolved into Creative Camera, a monthly magazine of fine art and documentary photography, which in turn, in 2000, became DPICT before its publication ceased in 2001.

## History

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When Camera Owner was launched in 1964 from 27 Whitfield Street, London,[1] edited by Alec Fry ARPS[2] previously of Amateur Photographer magazine,[3] it offered pictorial 'how-to' articles for an audience ranging from the keen amateur to the dabbler with no interest in technical jargon; it was subtitled ‘The Teach-Yourself Photo Monthly’.[2]

From Issue #8 of February 1965 South African photographer Jürgen Schadeberg, picture editor of the influential Drum magazine in the 1950s, took over as picture editor, exercising a stronger design and a bolder use of pictures. By Issue #10, in April 1965, Fry moved on to establish Polysales Progress mail order firm, and Schadeberg took on the editorship.[4]

### Reorientation

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In July 1965, Bill Jay[5] had contributed two articles to the magazine and by December of the same year he took over as Editor. His aim was to promote British photography as a serious art form to rival the U.S. Aperture and Norman Hall's Photography, and the Swiss Romeo Martinez' Camera.[6] He instituted book reviews in 1966 (for example, of John Szarkowski's The Photographer's Eye, July 1967) and interviews (including with Aaron Siskind and David Douglas Duncan).[5] Magazine content emphasised the aesthetics of photography over technique, and Jay encouraged his readers to initiate 'postal circles' by circulating a boxed print by mail to a group for feedback.

Colin Osman,[7] himself a keen photographer, historian and collector of photography,[8][9][10][11][12] and owner of Coo Press, a publishing house with a long and lucrative history of racing pigeon publications, bought the failing Camera Owner from the publishers Davpet Ltd. for £1 in 1966.[13] Jay remained as editor and continued to change the style of the magazine,[14] so that it attracted more serious readers and contributors, amongst them young British photographers like David Hurn and Tony Ray-Jones.

### Reformation

[edit]

Jay gradually transformed the ‘hobbyist’ Camera Owner during 1967, with the word ‘Creative’, in a smaller font, being placed above the title ‘Camera Owner’, and ‘Owner’ reduced, by December, to a smaller font so that ‘Creative Camera’ dominated the masthead.[2] With the reorientation of content that Jay had introduced, the journal finally became Creative Camera alone in February 1968, continuing with that title through more than 30 years of publication.[15]

## See also

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* Creative Camera
* Bill Jay

## References

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1. ^ Writers' and artists' year-book, Volume 59 A. and C. Black, 1966
2. ^ a b c "From Camera Owner to Creative Camera". The Golden Fleece. 30 October 2012. Archived from the original on 2 August 2019. Retrieved 4 September 2019.
3. ^ "Amateur Photographer". www.photomemorabilia.co.uk. Archived from the original on 4 September 2019. Retrieved 4 September 2019.
4. ^ David Allan Mellor, "A Contextual Chronology", p.150. In David Allan Mellor, ed., No Such Thing as Society: Photography in Britain 1967–87: From the British Council and the Arts Council Collection (London: Hayward, 2007; ISBN 978-1-85332-265-5).
5. ^ a b Val Williams, 'Crowned with Thorns: Creative Camera 1965-1978'. In Creative Camera No.321, April–May 1993
6. ^ Bill Jay, "What Happened Here?: Photography in Britain since 1968. Archived July 8, 2011, at the Wayback Machine" Conference at the National Museum of Photography, Film and Television, Bradford, England, 14 October 2004.
7. ^ Hopkinson, Amanda (16 April 2002). "Obituary: Colin Osman". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 2 September 2019. Retrieved 4 September 2019.
8. ^ Osman, Colin (1999). Jerusalem caught in time. Garnet Publishing. ISBN 978-1-85964-120-0.
9. ^ Osman, Colin (1997). Egypt : caught in time. Garnet. ISBN 978-1-873938-95-9.
10. ^ Englander, David A; Osman, Colin; Arts Council of Great Britain (1981). The British worker photographs of working life 1839-1939. Arts Council of Great Britain. ISBN 978-0-7287-0280-6.
11. ^ Rodger, George; Osman, Colin; Caiger-Smith, Martin (1987). Magnum opus : fifty years in photojournalism. Nishen. ISBN 978-1-85378-001-1.
12. ^ Vargas, Ava, ed. (1986). La casa de cita: Mexican photographs from the Belle Epoque. Quartet. ISBN 978-0-7043-2578-4.
13. ^ Colin Ford. Obituary:Colin Osman, a significant and colourful figure. In The PhotoHistorian No. 139, Journal of the Historical Group of the Royal Photographic Society, September 2002, Twickenham, UK
14. ^ Warren, Lynne; Warren, Lynn (2005), Encyclopedia of Twentieth-Century Photography, 3-Volume Set, Taylor and Francis, ISBN 978-0-203-94338-0
15. ^ Brittain, David (1999). Creative camera : thirty years of writing. Manchester University Press. ISBN 978-0-7190-5804-2.