Deon
Active Member
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2024
- Messages
- 79
Back in 1969 my father Robert Reynolds was commissioned to create a coffee table book on Alaska. He had been designing a series of “state” books for Graphic Arts Center Publishing for several years, but had never photographed one. For the project he purchased a Hasselblad 500 C, two 12 magazines and a 50mm, 80mm, 150mm and 250mm C lens. I was eleven years old when we headed to Alaska on an 18 month adventure of a lifetime. To help fund the trip he had jobs lined up with New England Fish and the Alyeska Pipeline (under construction). We rented an apartment in Anchorage at first, but after a few months my mother said to my father, “Bob, take me to the airport, I want to go home”. At that point he let the apartment go, we would stay in remote lodges and tent camp out of the Rover for the remainder of the trip. I was his assistant, loading film and toting equipment, from fishing boats to bush planes, in every corner of the state. Towards the end we were in Ketchikan, dad was shooting for the fish company, he rented a seaplane to photograph fishing boats out in the Pacific. After finding some fishing boats to photograph. He said to the pilot, fly low and slow around the boats so I can photograph them. The pilot said I’ll do better than that, I’ll land next to them. This is the Pacific Ocean folks, the swells were bigger than the Cessna 206 we were in. Needless to say we didn’t make it, the first wave we hit, the plane flipped over landing upside down and backwards. I was strapped in, in the backseat, watching my father and the pilot trying to get the doors open. They didn’t until the cabin was almost full of water. By the time I made it to the surface a hand had grabbed me pulling me to the deck of a fishing boat. The captain yelling for us to get our cloths off and hug the wood stove in the galley before we die of hypothermia. All of dads cameras in a Zero Halliburton case are somewhere at the bottom of the ocean. He then purchased a Rollie SL66 with 50mm, 80mm and 150mm lenses. It broke so much, it wasn't long before he traded it for a Hasselblad system as we went on to photograph his next book, Texas. Robert Reynolds designed over 250 books for GAC publishing and photographed over a dozen. The last book he designed for them before he passed away was my Nevada book, all shot with Hasselblad cameras.
- EPSON Perfection V700/V750
- EPSON Perfection V700/V750
- EPSON Perfection V700/V750