Charles Cameron Macauley (October 20, 1923 – May 17, 2007) was a photographer, filmmaker and educator noted for his prize winning still photographs, his ethnographic films and his expertise on historic films and photographs. His career spanned over 75 years.

Biography

Early life

Charles Cameron Macauley was born on October 20, 1923, in

Grand Rapids Grand Rapids is a city and county seat of Kent County in the U.S. state of Michigan. At the 2020 census, the city had a population of 198,917 which ranks it as the second most-populated city in the state after Detroit. Grand Rapids is the ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the ...

. He was the younger brother of the noted editor and novelist Robie Macauley. Both boys took an interest in photography, and at the age of ten Macauley purchased his first Norton camera, a prototype of the highly successful Univex Model A, which sold for 39 cents and was among the first inexpensive cameras marketed for the general public. Macauley also experimented with a folding Kodak Bantam camera, a Foth Derby, a Rolleicord I, an Argus, a National Graflex and a Miniature Speed Graphic with a soft focus Verito lens. By the late 1930s Macauley began doing commercial photography using a 4x5 Speed Graphic. He was briefly employed as a photographer and a

photoengraver Photoengraving is a process that uses a light-sensitive photoresist applied to the surface to be engraved to create a mask that protects some areas during a subsequent operation which etches, dissolves, or otherwise removes some or all of the mate ...

for ''The

Ottawa Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...

Times''. Macauley entered

Kenyon College Kenyon College is a private liberal arts college in Gambier, Ohio. It was founded in 1824 by Philander Chase. Kenyon College is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. Kenyon has 1,708 undergraduates enrolled. Its 1,000-acre campus is se ...

Gambier, Ohio Gambier is a village in Knox County, Ohio, United States. The population was 2,391 at the 2010 census. Gambier is the home of Kenyon College. A major feature is a gravel path running the length of the village, referred to as "Middle Path". This ...

in 1942 and in December hitchhiked to New York City to meet

Alfred Stieglitz Alfred Stieglitz (January 1, 1864 – July 13, 1946) was an American photographer and modern art promoter who was instrumental over his 50-year career in making photography an accepted art form. In addition to his photography, Stieglitz was kno ...

. Although Stieglitz refused to comment on Macauley's photographs, he permitted the young man to photograph him reclining on a couch.

War years

Macauley returned to Kenyon and enlisted in the Navy in 1943. He completed a 4-month course at the U.S. Naval Photographic School at NAS

Pensacola, Florida Pensacola () is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle, and the county seat and only incorporated city of Escambia County, Florida, United States. As of the 2020 United States census, the population was 54,312. Pensacola is the principal ...

and then a graduate course in

photolithography In integrated circuit manufacturing, photolithography or optical lithography is a general term used for techniques that use light to produce minutely patterned thin films of suitable materials over a substrate, such as a silicon wafer, to protect ...

at the Naval Photographic Science Laboratory in

Anacostia, Washington, D.C. Anacostia is a historic neighborhood in Southeast Washington, D.C. Its downtown is located at the intersection of Good Hope Road and Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue. It is located east of the Anacostia River, after which the neighborhood is nam ...

He was assigned to a Photographic Squadron which made mosaic maps of all coastlines in the

Western Hemisphere The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the antimeridian. The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Politically, the term We ...

including

Greenland Greenland ( kl, Kalaallit Nunaat, ; da, Grønland, ) is an island country in North America that is part of the Kingdom of Denmark. It is located between the Arctic and Atlantic oceans, east of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. Greenland is t ...

. During the war Macauley completed courses in

photogrammetry Photogrammetry is the science and technology of obtaining reliable information about physical objects and the environment through the process of recording, measuring and interpreting photographic images and patterns of electromagnetic radiant ima ...

, operational mapping, and

hydrography Hydrography is the branch of applied sciences which deals with the measurement and description of the physical features of oceans, seas, coastal areas, lakes and rivers, as well as with the prediction of their change over time, for the primary p ...

. He later served on board the USS Tangier in the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by the shores of South China (hence the name), in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Phil ...

Education

Macauley returned to Kenyon College in 1946 and graduated in 1949 with a B.A. in English. As a student during the summer of 1947, accredited as a foreign correspondent, he traveled through Central America and photographed the events of Costa Rican Civil War.C. Cameron Macauley
/ref> He went on to study at the California School of Fine Arts (now the

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...

) under Minor White. He was employed as an instructor at the

University of Wisconsin A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...

from 1952 to 1957 and completed his MFA in Creative Photography there in 1958. During this period he worked with

Dorothea Lange Dorothea Lange (born Dorothea Margaretta Nutzhorn; May 26, 1895 – October 11, 1965) was an American documentary photographer and photojournalist, best known for her Depression-era work for the Farm Security Administration (FSA). Lange' ...

Ansel Adams Ansel Easton Adams (February 20, 1902 – April 22, 1984) was an American landscape photographer and environmentalist known for his black-and-white images of the American West. He helped found Group f/64, an association of photographers advoca ...

Man Ray Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky; August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976) was an American visual artist who spent most of his career in Paris. He was a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealism, Surrealist movements, although his t ...

, Imogen Cunningham,

Lisette Model Lisette Model (born Elise Amelie Felicie Stern; November 10, 1901 – March 30, 1983) was an Austrian-born American photographer primarily known for the frank humanism of her street photography. A prolific photographer in the 1940s and a member ...

Edward Weston Edward Henry Weston (March 24, 1886 – January 1, 1958) was a 20th-century American photographer. He has been called "one of the most innovative and influential American photographers..." and "one of the masters of 20th century photography." ...

and

Edward Steichen Edward Jean Steichen (March 27, 1879 – March 25, 1973) was a Luxembourgish American photographer, painter, and curator, renowned as one of the most prolific and influential figures in the history of photography. Steichen was credited with tr ...

Career

Macauley became interested in anthropological, primatological, archeological and ethnographic films and from 1956 to 1964 was involved with William Heick in the American Indian Film Project, a project to document Native American cultures through film and sound recordings. Macauley worked closely with Alfred Kroeber and Samuel Barrett, writing scripts, filming and recording, and editing many of the 105 films produced during the project, using 16mm color Ektachrome footage. He later produced several films on primate behavior with primatologists George B. Schaller,

Sherwood Washburn Sherwood Larned Washburn ( – ), nicknamed "Sherry", was an American physical anthropologist, and "a legend in the field." He was pioneer in the field of primatology, opening it to the study of primates in their natural habitats. His research ...

and

Irven DeVore Irven DeVore (October 7, 1934 – September 23, 2014) was an anthropologist and evolutionary biologist, and Curator of Primatology at Harvard University's Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. He headed Harvard's Department of Anthropolog ...

. During this period Macauley taught photography at the

University of California at Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant univ ...

and at

UCSF The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is a public land-grant research university in San Francisco, California. It is part of the University of California system and is dedicated entirely to health science and life science. It condu ...

and became director of the university's media distribution center for the 9 campuses. In 1983 he stepped down from this position to found his own media appraisal group, Media Appraisal Consultants. In 1996 he was contracted by the JFK Presidential Library to appraise a series of documentary films which

Ernest Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fic ...

co-produced, narrated and appeared in. In 1997 Macauley was appointed by the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United State ...

to appraise the Zapruder film of the assassination of President

John F. Kennedy John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination i ...

. Macauley and other film experts contracted by the US Government assessed the film's value at $784,065. Following arbitration with the Zapruder heirs, the government purchased the film in 1998 for $16 million. During his career Macauley participated as an awards juror in 85 national and international film festivals and was scriptwriter/cinematographer for 33 films, producer/director of 8 films, and production manager or film animator for 9 films. He died in California on May 17, 2007.

Photographic works

Macauley's photographic skill was first recognized for a series of black and white stills taken in San Francisco in the early 1950s. During the 1940s Macauley took photographs of

,Cameron Macauley, 7 Portraits of Photographers at Wildcat Hill, 1949, Vintage Photographs
/ref> William Empson,

Anthony Hecht Anthony Evan Hecht (January 16, 1923 – October 20, 2004) was an American poet. His work combined a deep interest in form with a passionate desire to confront the horrors of 20th century history, with the Second World War, in which he fought, an ...

Arthur Koestler Arthur Koestler, (, ; ; hu, Kösztler Artúr; 5 September 1905 – 1 March 1983) was a Hungarian-born author and journalist. Koestler was born in Budapest and, apart from his early school years, was educated in Austria. In 1931, Koestler join ...

Robert Lowell Robert Traill Spence Lowell IV (; March 1, 1917 – September 12, 1977) was an American poet. He was born into a Boston Brahmin family that could trace its origins back to the ''Mayflower''. His family, past and present, were important subjects i ...

, Flannery O'Connor, Mamaine Paget,

John Crowe Ransom John Crowe Ransom (April 30, 1888 – July 3, 1974) was an American educator, scholar, literary critic, poet, essayist and editor. He is considered to be a founder of the New Criticism school of literary criticism. As a faculty member at Kenyon ...

, Peter Taylor, Eleanor Ross Taylor,

Dody Weston Thompson Dody Weston Thompson (April 11, 1923 – October 14, 2012) was a 20th-century American photographer and chronicler of the history and craft of photography. She learned the art in 1947 and developed her own expression of “straight” or realistic ...

, Brett Weston, and

. He is also known for a series of portraits he produced mostly in the 1950s, including photographs of

Jack Benny Jack Benny (born Benjamin Kubelsky, February 14, 1894 – December 26, 1974) was an American entertainer who evolved from a modest success playing violin on the vaudeville circuit to one of the leading entertainers of the twentieth century with ...

, Aldous Huxley,

Frank Lloyd Wright Frank Lloyd Wright (June 8, 1867 – April 9, 1959) was an American architect, designer, writer, and educator. He designed more than 1,000 structures over a creative period of 70 years. Wright played a key role in the architectural movements o ...

, Count Basie,

Buster Keaton Joseph Frank "Buster" Keaton (October 4, 1895 – February 1, 1966) was an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He is best known for his silent film work, in which his trademark was physical comedy accompanied by a stoic, deadpan expression ...

and

John Houseman John Houseman (born Jacques Haussmann; September 22, 1902 – October 31, 1988) was a Romanian-born British-American actor and producer of theatre, film, and television. He became known for his highly publicized collaboration with director ...

.Exhibited a
"Faces and Figures of the Twentieth Century"
at California State University, Chico, and

Prague Prague ( ; cs, Praha ; german: Prag, ; la, Praga) is the capital and largest city in the Czech Republic, and the historical capital of Bohemia. On the Vltava river, Prague is home to about 1.3 million people. The city has a temperate ...

Czech Republic The Czech Republic, or simply Czechia, is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Historically known as Bohemia, it is bordered by Austria to the south, Germany to the west, Poland to the northeast, and Slovakia to the southeast. The ...

, 2000–2001. Minor White considered Macauley's images "sensitive" and "lyrical" and noted that he could "work with people with considerable insight and power."

Awards

Macauley received the

American Indian Film Festival The American Indian Film Festival is an annual non-profit film festival in San Francisco, California, United States. It is the world's oldest venue dedicated solely to Native American/First Nations films and prepared the way for the 1979 formati ...

Blue Ribbon Award, the Columbus International Film & Video Festival

Chris Award The Columbus International Film + Animation Festival is a Columbus, Ohio, United States annual film festival which is designed to encourage and promote the use of film and video in all forms of education and communication. It is the first and ol ...

and the Berlin International Film Festival Award.Historical Photographs: C. Cameron Macauley and William R. Heick
/ref>

References

External links

; ttp://editiononebooks.blogspot.com/2010/11/golden-decade-by-ira-latour-cameron.html Selected photographs from ''The Golden Decade''.
''Film Study: A Guide to Film Analysis and Appreciation'' by C. Cameron Macauley (1957).''Women's Film: A New Category in EMC Films, 1973–1974,'' by C. Cameron Macauley (1973)."Leslie W. Boyer, James F. Guinane, Charles C. Macauley: Our Final Salutes," by Guy Miller, ''The Fossil'', Volume 104, Number 1, Whole Number 334, Glenview, Illinois, October 2007.C. Cameron MacauleyKarel Reisz, Gavin Millar, C. Cameron Macauley‌, "The Technique of Film Editing," ''Film Quarterly,'' April 1969, Vol. 22, No. 3, Pages 50–55 , DOI 10.1525/fq.1969.22.3.04a00130; Posted online on August 9, 2007.C. Cameron Macauley: San Francisco PhotographsGeorge Snyder, "Photographer Captures Spirit Of Indian Life," ''San Francisco Chronicle,'' Friday, October 30, 1998, p. EB-1.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Macauley, C. Cameron 1923 births 2007 deaths University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni University of Wisconsin–Madison faculty American portrait photographers Artists from Grand Rapids, Michigan United States Navy sailors San Francisco Art Institute alumni University of California, Berkeley faculty Kenyon College alumni Photographers from California