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The
Visual Record of Angus McDougall
By Lori Duff
Angus McDougall was taking a risk when he
decided to quit work as a high school teacher and become a photography
student in New York.
After all, he had two small children and
a wife to think about.
“I was highly motivated,” McDougall,
now 85, says with a smile. “I had a lot of reason to succeed.”
That dedication and passion led McDougall,
or “Mac” as he is known to former students, to more
than a successful career as a photographer. It led him to devote
more than 50 years to creating, preserving and teaching how
to make a visual record of the world. And it led him to the
University of Missouri, where he would shape a generation of
outstanding photographers.
McDougall’s first newspaper job was
as a staff photographer for the Milwaukee Journal in
the 1940s and 50s — part of a team on the cutting edge
of photojournalism. The group included men who would eventually
become the leaders of the photo world at LIFE, National
Geographic Magazine and universities across the country.
Working with such innovations as portable
strobe lighting and ROP (run of paper) color, the Journal
pushed boundaries in content and redefined newspaper picture
presentation to include full-page and multiple picture layouts.
Glimpses of this period in McDougall’s
life are now available in the book he published in 2001 –
A Photo Journal: from the Glory Days of the Milwaukee Journal
— and donated to the photojournalism sequence.
The book highlights news photographs from
his years at the paper and demonstrates his gift for making
creative pictures in ordinary situations, the curiosity he held
for technical innovation and his respect for his subjects.
“I could get real excited about getting
a good picture,” McDougall says. “If you go out
on an assignment and think it’s a dog, you’ll come
back with a dog. A positive attitude is terribly important.
It comes down to: ‘Are you going to take the easy way
out or are you going to try for something better?’”
This is the third book McDougall has written.
Patrick Donehue, Corbis photo agency vice president for commercial
photography, said recently in Photo District News that
McDougall's first book, Visual Impact in Print, was
“the best book ever written on photo editing. Enough said.”
When the book came out in 1971, McDougall
had been working as an editor and photographer at International
Harvester World, a Chicago-based corporate magazine. There,
he says, he was fortunate enough to work with writers and editors
who appreciated pictures, read pictures and lived pictures in
much the same way he did.
That collaboration led to the development
of many of McDougall’s picture editing philosophies and
principles of visual communication that he would include in
that first book, which he co-wrote with Gerald D. Hurley.
Around this time Clifton Edom, founder of
the School of Journalism’s photography sequence, asked
McDougall to come to Columbia to teach at the University.
For the next 10 years, from 1972-1982, McDougall
led the photojournalism sequence and served as director of the
Pictures of the Year competition. He taught hundreds of students
how to capture Clifton Edom’s goal of “life as it
is.”
McDougall and his former students will tell
you he ran a tight ship.
“I approached (teaching) from the
standpoint of an editor. How professional is your work?”
he says. “Will you be able to cut it when you go out to
get a job?”
He also expected students to become complete
communicators, which meant teaching them not only how to discover
and photograph the concerns of newspaper readers, but also how
to develop writing and presentation skills so that the message
was not lost.
“Mac preached a comprehensive approach,”
says David Rees, a former student and currently head of the
photojournalism sequence. “He felt that for photographers
to have the credibility necessary to cause change meant that
they had to be adept at nearly all aspects of journalism.”
That approach has sent many of McDougall’s
students to top newspaper positions around the country.
“The real reward is to see the success
of students that you’ve had,” McDougall says. “My
greatest pride is when students get into management. That’s
the ultimate control. If people at the top understand photography,
then you have a very healthy situation.”
These days, McDougall sees newspapers cutting
staff photography jobs and using freelancers as corporate chains
focus on their bottom line as an indicator of success. It’s
a practice he feels may be damaging in the long run.
“People read pictures. Look at pictures.
Appreciate pictures,” McDougall says. “A paper that
doesn’t use pictures well is hurting itself.”
Of course there’s plenty of room for
hope, says McDougall. The web and other undiscovered areas of
publication may make room for the photographers of the future.
What is clear, says McDougall, is that “the
visual record will always stay and those with talent will make
it.”
View
Angus McDougall Photo Retrospective
If you are interested in a copy of McDougall’s
book, A Photo Journal: from the Glory Days of the Milwaukee
Journal, contact Kim Morrison by e-mail at morrisonkl@missouri.edu.
The book costs $30 and proceeds go to the photojournalism sequence.
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Copyright © 2007 — Curators of the University of Missouri
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Published by the Mizzou Alumni Association
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Last Update:
March 12, 2007
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