DISCOVERING YOURSELF & EXPANDING LUCK. By Raymond J. Klein Master Photographer.

On a Sunday morning I saw the ad, for motion picture photographers, to begin working at the Martin Co., right in Orlando, only a few miles from my apartment. Once more I applied and got the job, only now at a higher pay scale.  I had been promoted to documentary film making.  Now I did NOT have to track rockets, but now our crew had to actually film the story of how rockets were constructed and how they were launched.

He told me he did not want these pictures to be, “Run of the Mill” type photographs, but something really special that would be attractive, to a college graduate in the field of engineering.  Again I was assigned with a 4” X 5” press camera with multiple flash equipment.  Now I was in charge of developing and printing my own B&W film and making prints of the negatives, and also processing my own color sheet film.  Nothing could  be sent out for processing because of the nature of the subject matter.

Each situation was now a SUPER challenge!  There were several departments within the plant that offered extremely interesting subject matter.  The writer and I worked together daily, carefully weighing our options on capturing that mysterious and illusive quality called “IMPACT!” 

One department in particular gave us an opportunity, which did NOT reveal itself immediately, but after examining all the angles and options, looked as if it had startling potential!  I asked the engineer, operating the component “flight simulator” tester, if it was possible to attach small lights to the extreme corners of the triple rocker tables of the device.  He agreed that he could, but we would have to return the next day after he completed the request.

I had remembered seeing night pictures of city lights and roadways with moving cars, during a long exposure, and the streaking designs of the lights from automobiles. The engineer attached red, green, and clear christmas bulbs and had concealed the wiring.  I had a flash attachment I could remove from the camera and  stretch the cord several feet to the right and attach it to a separate stand, and direct it at the engineer seen in the picture.  The room would be completely darkened, with the exception of the small illuminated bulbs, on the moving device, the camera mounted on a tripod, to keep it steady, the shutter was opened for a long 15 second time exposure, then the flash was tripped when the engineer looked directly at the camera. This action created a multi-color-light pattern design in the picture.

The resulting 4” X 5” inch  positive transparent color film picture was circulated to the entire staff of the department, with a resulting “AFFIRMATIVE” for use in a national recruitment poster.  We had now achieved a picture with real “PURPOSE!”

This same image and a few other images from the month long session can be seen by going to:

Then click on the GALLERY section, then on the INDUSTRIAL group and review the multi-color-light pattern image by clicking on  that individual image to enlarge the view. Here you can see the entire recruiting color poster displayed.

The reproduction of the poster and the image, was used for recruiting engineers to the Martin Co. It was sent to many universities in the nation, and reproduced in newspapers in many states.  Our Nation was now moving quickly into the “Space Race.”

The moving light technique would remain in my arsenal of tricks for years to come.  In 2015, now as a member of an Art Gallery with a commitment toward education, I assembled a device to illustrate the “MAGIC” of using a single small moving light, and a long time exposure photography of the subject, much to the amazement of the grade school children.  See the link below as an example:

You can see the similarity in the technique used to produce the light pattern for the Martin Co. poster, and the light pattern I would be able to teach young students many years later.

A whole new adventure was about to begin.