In 1916, Pathe News editor Paul Hugon wrote a 16 page booklet full of tips and advice for his slowly growing army of newsreel cameramen.

It was the first words of advice ever published about the practice of the then still rather newish craft of motion picture news photography.

You can either read Hugon’s advice given to the news photogs of the day by either clicking on the image to the left or reading the transcribed version at this link.

As for a two-fer for today’s post, a poem written by an anonymous newsreel cameraman in the same year lamenting about his career:

“The Wail of the Cameraman”

Turn, turn, turn
This old film reel, Oh, Gee!
If I only dared to utter
The thoughts that arise in me.

They send me to Jericho,
They send me to Helsingfors,
They send me to Mexico;
I’ve got to record the wars.

They send me out to sea,
Where the billows are beating past;
I must send a film back home
Of sailors lashed to the mast.

I’m sent to the dizziest heights,
I hang by my eyebrows there;
The task of my days and nights
Is to go where no others dare.

My life, pray, and what is that?
A pawn in the movie game,
I risk it ten times a day,
And no one e’er hears my name.