John Harold Boyd, also referred to as John Boyd Jr. was a Canadian photographer for ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of approximately 2 million in 2015, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on weekdays and Saturdays, although it ...

'', based in Toronto, Ontario. He was also a founding member and early president of the Commercial and Press Photographers' Association of Canada.

Mike Filey Mike Filey (October 11, 1941 – July 30, 2022) was a Canadian historian, radio host, journalist and author. He was awarded the Jean Hibbert Memorial Award in 2009 for promoting the city of Toronto and its history. Early life Born in 1941 in ...

, the author of a long-running column, in the ''

Toronto Sun The ''Toronto Sun'' is an English-language tabloid newspaper published daily in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The newspaper is one of several ''Sun'' tabloids published by Postmedia Network. The newspaper's offices is located at Postmedia Place i ...

'', on the history of Toronto, described Boyd as a technical innovator, who modified and tuned his cameras, which, incidentally, gave them a distinct appearance. Boyd was the first Canadian to transmit a photograph electronically. Filey described Boyd as a meticulous craftsman and record-keeper, whose logbooks donated to the City of Toronto archives, recorded the number, subject and date of over 100,000 negatives for photos he took.

Early Training

John Boyd's father, John Boyd Sr. was an avid amateur photographer, who taught his son about photography beginning at an early age. Boyd Jr. then completed an apprenticeship at a commercial firm, before working as a freelance photographer for agricultural journals.Lansdale, Robert. "John H. Boyd and his camera..." ''Graflex Historic Quarterly'' (Vol. 14; No. 2) https://www.graflex.org/GHQ/GHQ-14-2.pdf

The Globe and Mail

He was hired by the ''Globe'' as the newspapers first (and at that time, only) staff photographer in December 1922. Boyd Jr.'s first assignment at the Globe was photographing the streetcar tracks being laid in front of Union Station. The remained with the ''Globe'' when it merged with the ''Mail and Empire'' in 1936 to become ''The Globe and Mail''. He remained at the Globe and Mail until his retirement in 1964. According to Robert Landsale, as the newspaper's top photographer, Boyd Jr. covered many of the most tumultuous events in Canada's history, and was recognized as a professional who "would go to any lengths to get a shot". He was also an innovator and early adopter of evolving photographic technology. He was the first news photographer to use flashbulbs, the first to transmit a wirephoto using a portable transmitter.Plummer, Kevin "Historicist: The Two John Boyds" http://torontoist.com/2011/12/historicist-the-two-john-boyds/2/ He was also the first news photographer to write his own captions, a skill learned from his father.

External links

* City of Toronto Archives
Globe and Mail fonds
* Archives of Ontario, John Boyd Fonds (Aerial photographs of Toronto, c. 1958) https://www.archeion.ca/john-boyd-fonds * Library and Canada
John Boyd Fonds
(Family photographs taken by his father)

References

* Payne, Carol and Andrea Kunard.
The Cultural Work of Photography in Canada
' (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2011). * White, Randall.
Too good to be true: Toronto in the 1920s
' (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1993). {{DEFAULTSORT:Boyd, John H. 1898 births 1971 deaths Artists from Toronto Canadian photographers