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By HOPE STONE Window shades have started careers. Some claim that it was a thoughtful mind trapped in a darkened room during daylight hours that went on to create the camera obscura. A tiny pin hole in the window shade cast an inverted picture on the opposite wall. One of Aiken's first 20th cen tury studio photographers start ed with a window shade for a backdrop. Dr. Harold Quat tlebaum (a certified pharma cist) started a sideline to his drug store the day he charged Dot George $1 to make a pic ture of her. Soon after, he converted a dinning room to a studio by hanging a window shade in the door frame of French doors. The first time “Dr. Q”’ saw a print developed was when he visited an uncle in Chicago at the time of the World's Colum bian Exposition. He was six or seven years old and his uncle had a camera that used glass plates. Photography made its first “giant step’ in 1839 when Daguerre created a technique using silver copper plate, iodine fumes, mercury vapor and hype to develop and fix an image on metal. Even when the wet collodion process replaced daguerre type, it took patience to pre pare a glass plate that might have as part of its recipe “whites of five fresh eggs, mixed with about one hundred grains of potassium idodide, about 20 grains of potassium bromide and ten grains of com mon salt .. . ' The recipe for treating paper called for am monium chloride, spirits of wine, water and whites of 15 “fairly sized eggs’ In 1888 George Eastman di rected the population of Ameri ca to a new hobby when he placed on the market Kodak 1. “It sold for $25 loaded with enough American film for 100 exposures. Camera and expos ed film were returned to Ro chester to have the film de veloped, prints made, and the camera reloaded. But it is the Brownie box camera that receives the glow of praise from all who owned one. Dr. Quattlebaum remini scenced, “The box camera took a two and a quarter by two and a quarter. It had no view finder on it, but for 25 cents extra you could stuff it on the corner of the camera. If you developed your own film it was rolled up so tight you could hardly work with it. This was before the non curling films. The dealer for supplies was a gift shop and you could buy tubes which would be enough for one batch. You didn 't worry about tempera tures as we do now. If it didn’t burn you or it wasn't too cold it was all right. We would use two or three pans as we do now, but the lantern used for a safe light was so dark you could hardly see.” That $1 portrait Miss George received was a glossy print and had no mat. No retouching was done as the film was so small it was impossible to correct. But Miss George is still his satisfied customer as just this week she was in for another picture, to be used in the year book of the Pilot Club, of which she is a charter mem ber. Photographers were part of the caravan that came with winter colony in past years. An outstanding one was a Mr. Freudhiem who signed his work ‘“Freudy’. New York City still has a studio that carries his name. Some of the best pictures of the old hotels and events of Aiken carry his signature in the left hand cor ner. If your family scrap book holds one of his pictures we hope you'll write this column as it will help the record of our city to know where old time pictures have been saved with care. Miss George's problem was that she needed a picture and it was ‘‘off-season” as Freddy was in New York. This was the event that added anoth er career to Quattlebaum’s list. He attended Clemson to be an engineer. He had one sum mer working on the first ‘‘post road’’ which ran from the edge of the county over toward Wil liston on to Eureka, a nice name for a stopping point. A picture of the crew of ‘‘col lege blades’’ shows the doctor standing with his hand on the transit. After graduating from Clem son, he taught physics there and then math and civil en gineering at USC. He went to Newnan, Ga. to teach math, became part of the engineer ing staff with the Cole Company there, but this was interrupted when his dad asked that he return to Aiken to work in his drug store. Quattlebaum went to Atlanta and earned his phar macy degree and returned to Aiken. Twenty years ago the business section of Aiken would take a ‘‘coke break’’ and sit on old fashion soda chairs about 10 in the morning to enjoy one anothers company and the charm of ‘Dr. Q.” In time the drug store carried Kodak supplies and the doctor ran a commercial finishing service. He speaks of his wife's skill as a good printer with considerable pride. His first studio camera (a Century) was one used by Reed Kirk land who had been the town photographer in the past. Quattlebaum read many ma gazines and books about photo graphy and took a course in Indianna sponsored by the Professional Photographers of America. Later he was honored by having one of his pictures selected by the or ganization and placed in their year book. He uses two to four high school students as aides and they master many skills under his direction. They are lucky to have for a friend a man full of humor, with a memory that can quote Shakespeare or James W. Riley when a certain situation triggers a proper line. He has originated several poems of his own. Aiken is the kind of town that has a hobby group supporting special skill. There is a camera club that meets the first and third Wednesdays at the Aiken Day School at 7:30 pm. The major interest is color slide photography. This group has sponsored 11 international colored slide competitions which have been rated high and enjoyed in several cities Visitors are welcome to all meetings. There are other professional photographers in Aiken and they will be featured in future stories WRITE: AIKEN ANECDOTES P.O. BOX 933 AIKEN, S.C. 29801 MAN OF MANY TALENTS ‘Dr. Q’ and his first studio camera.
Newspaper Details
Aiken Standard
Aiken, South Carolina, US
Tue, Apr 28, 1970
Page 7
Full Page
Clipped by
Susan H.
USA 09 Jul 2026
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