Moments Later: The Commercial Photographer

I was rummaging through my drawer looking for an envelope, and I found this magazine that my mother sent to me last year. It was from May 1947, and it had a photograph on the cover that my grandfather George Ginsberg took for this commercial trade magazine. Since I always expected to make a career in photography, I think about Pop and his natural instincts at publicity and marketing from the early part of the twentieth century.

George was a man whom everyone would remember if they only met him once.

How many of us will be able to make that claim?

Pop had a marketing instinct that I have written about in previous posts. What struck me in looking at this magazine is that today, this would be a blog, an online publication or a Linkedin group. No one is going to be able to hold a reminder of that virtual image or text in 65 years. But here it is December of 2013, and I have Pop’s work in my hands.

Pop was ready for the media back in 1925. He had a catch phrase that he would photograph anything from "a needle to a locomotive". He made good, clean commercial photographs of the "bread and butter" type with no frills, just good service at a fair price. George understood a unique value proposition well before the idea was taught in business school.

The Old Trade Magazines - Circa 1947
I loved the old Kodak ads that run through the publication and the latest Speed Graphic camera. Pop was a big fan of that brand (Graflex) and that camera style. He spent hours teaching me how to set the dials, to load the film and how to correct for lens distortions. The memories are rich and will never fade, like the beautiful photographs he took in his career.

The Commercial Photographer - May 1947