PRESS OFFICE TRANSCRIPT 25 October 1978 A
Interview with Paul Curtis, Australian Hi-Fi Photographics Magazine
Question: more or less how did it start, how did you get involved with
photography? Prime Minister:
I think probably travelling and just taking pictures of different
places that were interesting that I mightn't ever go to again.
Then when you start to get a family you take pictures of the kids,
and so it goes on.
Question: Roughly, how many years have you been involved with it?
Prime Minister:
About 20 years, or a little more. More than 20 years.
Question: Do you shoot mainly black and white, or colour print or colour
slides. Prime Minister:
Well I'm a bit lazy about that now, and so it's mostly colour
negatives. It used to be colour slides. Some movie photography,
but having not so much time as I used to, you want something that
you can put in a book that you can look at without having to get
out complex projectors and screens, and that's really the reason
for colour negatives.
Question: Is there any subject you most enjoy taking?
Prime Minister:
Well something interesting, something different. Wildlife, if
you can get close enough to it.. For a while -I grow great
camelias, we've got 70 or 80 camelias at home -I thought of
collecting a series of different camelias and maybe one day
publishing that. But as a politician I never have enough time
to take it far enough. A very great part of it is plainly
activity ( inaudible) whatever is interesting at the moment.
It gives you a record, reminds you just as well as a diary
and probably more effectively, axid I think in a more attractive
way. Question: Do you find that you are taking all your pictures when you are
overseas and when you are at home? / 2
Prime Minister:
well when you go to different places. When I went to Birdsville
I had a camera with me, camping out in the desert. If I go to
different places in Australia I take a camera. Often when you are
going overseas its just business and meetings, one hotel to another,
and hotels are very much the same, and so there isn't a great deal
of opportunity for photographs. Going to China and going to Japan,
when you had several days looking at the country after initial
discussions was obviously quite a different matter, providing
very interesting and fascinating opportunities for photography.
Question: Tell me, when you are taking pictures overseas do you get any
comments from other Heads of State about your photo interests?
Prime Minister:
I don't think so. President Scheel who was here wave goodbye from
his plane and then he camne out again to take some photographs of
the latest model Viscount. He arrived this morning at the airport
with a camera in his hand. Quite often you go to a meeting and
find other people who are interested in photography, or they will
give their camera to one of their staff to blast away with.
Question: Are there any other physical figures, political figures, who share
your interest, apart from President Scheel?
Prime Minister:
Well I haven't discussed it to any lengths with any of them.
I just noticed that President Scheel was carrying a camera and
using it.
Question: It doesn't crop up in the course of conversation?
Prime Minister:
Well it has. I have no doubt a number do. I think some members
of the Royal Family use one of those tiny little Minoxes. Others
use a small Rolex ( inaudible). But all sorts of people take
photographs from time to time of a great variety of things.
Question: What about your family. Do any Qther members of your family take
pictures too?
Prime Minister:
At different stages I think the kids have all had Instamatics.
They have gone through phases of taking photographs. I don't
know that any of them are develop ing into a fanatic and ardent / 3
photographer at the moment. My wife Tamie in recent times has
struggled to become a bit more interested in the use of a full
lens Minox. She won't use a big camera because its too
bulky, too heavy and too ostentatious probably. She uses one
of those small ones about the size of a pack of cards. In the
last few months she has been taking quite an interest and trying
to do something more than just point a camera and snap paying
attention to the composition of the photograph. Whether it's
an interest that will last or not I don't know yet.
Question: I get quite heavily involved via industry association ( inaudible).
Do you feel that you are self-conscious when you are carrying
a camera?
Prime Minister:
It depends what it is. In many cases I don't if you are looking
at things. But if you are getting out of a car and you officially
have to greet somebody or you are waiting for somebody officially
on the steps of Parliament House or reviewing a guard of honour,
in those circumstances it would look very odd if you went around
with a camera dangling in your hand or around your neck. That was
one of the reasons why I first got interested in small-sized
electric cameras. But I've basically given the very small cameras
away. The Minox, or whatever, the smaller one is to hard to get
good quality out of, it was too hard to get good processing, and
too slow anyway.
Question:
Have any cartoonists picked up your camera carrying habits?
Prime Minister:
One of them ought to have. Pickering should have, because I Iour~ c , ect
a book of his sometime last year I think, and he always a pipe in
my mouth, and I haven't smoked a pipe for four years, so I thought
I'd buy a pipe to make him honest and he thought he would buy me
a pipe to make me honest, and that's the pipe he bought me that
long-stemmed Dunhill, which must have cost him a fortune. And
launching the book he wanted me to draw him or draw a line on a
cartoon. I said no I wouldn't, I'd take a photograph of him
instead, but I didn't tell him I was going to take a photograph
with a fish-eye lens. That reminds me, some body wanted me to
do a cartoon of something and I said get one of those fish-eye
photographs. / 4
Question: That's quite interesting. It would be new.
Prime Minister:
Somebody is having an exhibition or something at present on them.
Question: How many pictures on average a month would you take, or is that
a difficult question.
Prime Minister:
Well there is no average. It might be none, if I'm going
somewhere it could be several rolls. I operate on the hope
that if you take a lot of photographs, one or two of them will
be worth keeping. I take a lot more than I ever put in a book.
Question:
And do you look back on those books fairly often, or do they
just get put in a book and forgotten.
Prime minister:
The family look back on them occasionally. I look back on them
occasionally. I can't say I go to a photo album every night, but
they are there, and they are a reminder, a record.
Question: Do you think of your photography as a private thing or do you
enjoy showing your work to others and do you send people prints?
Prime Minister:
It is a private family thing more. But if I've been on a trip
or been somewhere and taken some photographs of other people
I might send them copies of them, but more generally it's a family
affair.
Question: I would like to ask you some questions about your favourite piece
of equipment, but I understand you mightn't want to mention brand
names and stuf f like that.
Prime Minister:
Why not do it on what sort of cameras, what sort of lens length.
I don't have to mention names. I think it's fairly clear.
Question: What sort of equipment do you use in a kit form?
Prime Minister:
A standard 35 nun camera. I don't think I've used the standard
nun or 55 nmn lens for a very long while. ( inaudible) wide
angle 24 mm lens, which is the one that a very large number of
press photographers use I think on a continuous basis. Its a
versatile lens and for any filming that is around it's a very
good lens. And it's a good lens inside. I have a fish-eye
lens, which I use for odd occasions, but it's more a fun lens
I think than one for serious photography, and I don't really
like zoom lenses, although I have got one. I think they are
a bit slow to use, a bit cumbersome, and I'm not sure that
they are quite as sharp as a fixed focal length lens. And I
have one telephoto lens and a 500 mm lens, which is good for
wildlife or whatever, although when I really wanted it I didn't
have it, which was an opportunity missed. Next time I hope it
will be with me. The other lens which is interesting is the
close-up lens, which gives a very great degree of magnification,
and that is the lens I usually use for flower photography
photographing camelias. I sometimes think it would be
interesting to experiment with close-up photography of all
sorts of different kinds. It really takes you into quite a
different world and a fascinating one. But that will have to
wait a little while
Question: Do you want to give any criticisms or philosophies or likes or
dislikes about camera design?
Prime Minister:
Well it has advanced enormously, is much more versatile and is
also easier to use than used to be the case. I think it will
get very dull when there is automatic focusing and automatic
everything, although I've got no doubt that automatic cameras
sell in great quantities but they don't always assist the
photographer's own creativity unless you can override the
automatic elements and make the camera do exactly what you
want. I think it's something that a lot of people get a great
deal of pleasure out of families in particular can get a great
deal of pleasure because it does provide a visual record, and I
think that's the best record of different things that you do with
your kids, your family, the good times you've had together.
I don't think I've got anything in particular to say about
equipment other than that. There is an enormous range. It must
obviously be very hard for peopae to make up their minds what
they want to buy if they don't have firm ideas of what make they
want to go to, or what sort of camera they want to get. The
opportunities are great, and generally the instruments are
fairly easy to use these days. I can remember the first camera
I had was, I suppose it would be by today's standards about
or 60 years old, it would take six or eight films on a role.
It was quarter plate size. Was that a regular size, quarter
plate? And that used to take good, reliable black and white
on old-fashioned slow film. But photography is a lot more / 6
-6
exciting today. It's one area where technology has opened up
many new possibilities and I think greatly expanded the market
because it has opened up more opportunities. The only camera
you could get was the old quarter plate design or its
equivalent, and I don't know that there would have been as
many people interested as there are now.
Question: How about flash? Do you like to use flash, or do you prefer
to get along without it?
Prime Minister:
I like to carry a flash with me. I have one of those bounce
flash things which reads it out automatically. It doesn't
have. to bounce flash, but it can bounce and read automatically
and make it very easy to use. Again if you are going to some
places it enables you to take photographs that otherwise you
wouldn't we saw midnight corroborees in Central Australia.
That would have been missed completely if I didn't have a
flash. In those circumstances I think it's well worth using.
Question: Is there any particular photographer whose work you most admire?
Prime Minister:
I think there are a number of good photographers. I don't
suppose you'd mind me saying it, but Bruce Postle of The Age
I think is a creative photographer and a good one. A particular
photograph of his helped me out of a political problem on one
occasion. Some of my political foes were trying to create, as
I believe, a rather unfavourable image of Fraser as being archaic
and unreasonable, and so they printed T-shirts deriding the English
pound, to put value back into the pound and all sorts of other
antiquated statements of that kind, and the press were starting
to make something of this. So we worked out what we should do
about it and got two attractive girls from the rag trade, and they
donned these T-shirts, and they laid down on their backs and
stuck their legs in the air, and they had a photograph of Fraser
which they held between them. And I think Bruce Postle got up
onto the ceiling and took a photograph looking down on them.
This photograph appeared on the front page of The Age and I had
a mini-press conference at the same time and said that I greatly
valued my friends putting out these T-shirts because ( inaudible)
Frank Crean and the one about-putting value back into the pound,
and that I thought Jim Cairns had relieved matters. I picked out
various political figures around, the ones who I thought were
appropriate for a particular T-shirt, and that was the end of
that spoof. The photograph spoofed the spoof very effectively
and very well.
Question: Any particular favourite type of picture? I was just thinking / 7
7
you could be a very good candid photographer.
Prime Minister:
No, I don't think so. It depends upon circumstances. Some of the
most interesting photographs are of people or incidents having
people in them, incidents involving people have got more interest
than just places. You can go to different parts of the world
and photograph different places which are interesting and which
you haven't seen before, and these provide a good record, and
more than a record they provide a photographic opportunity.
Question: Have you got any comments you'd like to make about the approach
of Australian press photographers as against those that you meet
overseas? Prime Minister:
No, I think Australian press photographers basically do a fair
enough job. They have got to take film, they do it. If given a
reasonable opportunity they let it go at that. I don't think
I'm usually pressured in trying to get photographs, they have
got a job to do, to take photographs which are meant to be
newsworthy. I think it's an easier question to ask and answer
than one about Australian journalists.
Question: Have you done any of your2iack and white film?
Prime Minister:
No, never. I thought if I got involved I just wculdn't'have
time.