Lot Essay
The vendor became a profesional photographer in 1937 and continued as a combat/sergeant photographer between 1939 and 1945 in the far east. After active service he became a staff photgrapher on the Daily Mirror and was seconded to the Rank Organisation as a stills photographer at Pinewood studios on feature film production. He was associated with over sixty films at locations around the world and with many of the best known stars of the period.
This Witness camera was given to the vendor by Cubby Broccoli, later the producer of the James Bond films. His brief was to take plenty of reference pictures with a view to using these for studio reconstructions in London in an upcoming film. He was instructed to shoot as many pictures of the crews, activity of the whaling factory ship Southern Harvester and a number of its gunships. Much of the photography involved recording scenes of whaling activity and the five accompanying prints are from that series.
In November 1952 a film unit was despatched to the Antarctic and began filming Hell Below Zero which starred Alan Ladd and Stanley Baker. The film, which was released in 1954, told the story of an American adventurer who accompanies the daughter of a whaling captain to the Antarctic to discover who killed her father.
The camera was used to take stills during the 1952-1953 filming with the results being procesed on-board the MV Kista Dan which was acting as living quarters for the film crew. In the words of the vendor 'I was very pleasantly surprised with the camera and the results with the f/1.9 Dallmeyer lens, [although] it was difficult to rewind, open the back and reload quickly'.
Following the completion of filming Broccoli allowed the camera to remain with the photographer as 'an end of picture present'. It had exposed around fifty rolls of film.
The vendor continued an internationally-renowned careeer as a photographer.
This Witness camera was given to the vendor by Cubby Broccoli, later the producer of the James Bond films. His brief was to take plenty of reference pictures with a view to using these for studio reconstructions in London in an upcoming film. He was instructed to shoot as many pictures of the crews, activity of the whaling factory ship Southern Harvester and a number of its gunships. Much of the photography involved recording scenes of whaling activity and the five accompanying prints are from that series.
In November 1952 a film unit was despatched to the Antarctic and began filming Hell Below Zero which starred Alan Ladd and Stanley Baker. The film, which was released in 1954, told the story of an American adventurer who accompanies the daughter of a whaling captain to the Antarctic to discover who killed her father.
The camera was used to take stills during the 1952-1953 filming with the results being procesed on-board the MV Kista Dan which was acting as living quarters for the film crew. In the words of the vendor 'I was very pleasantly surprised with the camera and the results with the f/1.9 Dallmeyer lens, [although] it was difficult to rewind, open the back and reload quickly'.
Following the completion of filming Broccoli allowed the camera to remain with the photographer as 'an end of picture present'. It had exposed around fifty rolls of film.
The vendor continued an internationally-renowned careeer as a photographer.