The place is packed with people. Pressed against a wall, Odetta sings in
rapture. An arm's length away sit Imogen Cunningham, her eyes flickering with
mischief, and Robert Frost contemplating Roads Not Taken. Across from
them, Ansel Adams surveys the room's rustic brick and timber interior while,
in a less-crowded corner, a cadaverous Aldous Huxley talks about his latest
book. But the colloquy of Huxley is imagined here, not heard. And the eyes
lining the room stay open all day and all night. this is the Durant Avenue
studio of Berkeley master photographer g. Paul Bishop whose portraits of
Cunningham and hundreds of others seem to breathe.
"My people are real," says the easygoing Bishop, who relaxes on
the far end of the studio's couch, away from the lights of an overhead lamp.
His work is never re-touched. It comes complete with the freckles, dimples,
and wrinkles that are there in person. "When I do a portrait of someone,
I'm less concerned with their anatomy than I am with their spirit,"
explains Bishop. "If I removed any line from Imogen's face, I would kill
the life of the picture.
When Bishop first set up shop as a portraitist, on Oakland's Grand Avenue,
he specialized in another kind of picture --- a glamour shot. He employed
dramatic lighting and exotic backgrounds and spent hundreds of rolls of film
on "pouty lips and bear rugs." He even went to Hollywood to improve
his techniques by studying the photographers who transformed actors and
actresses into gods and goddesses. He learned how to direct light to shorten
or lengthen a nose or soften a jutting jaw-line. He made "Pretty
pictures," which were what the local debutantes and aspiring actresses
wanted. He also made a reputation and a substantial living. But something was
missing. Before he could identify it himself, World War II stepped in and did
it for him.
Bishop abandoned the starlets for an ensign's uniform. The Navy sent
him first to photography schools in the States and then to Barber's Point, a
naval air station in Hawaii, to teach what he had learned. He went on to
do aerial reconnaissance photography, covering the second battle of the
Philippines, for which he received the Presidential Citation. He was
then sent to work with Edward Steichen in a special photographic unit. A
promotion to the rank of lieutenant sent him to sea on the U.S.S. Hancock,
100 miles off the coast of Japan.
Bishop spent 21 months on the Pacific during the war. He recorded battles
in the sky and on deck, as well as taking what he calls "the first truly
great picture I ever made." It is a portrait of the Navy chaplain on
board, a 34-year-old Catholic priest from New Jersey named Father Doyle. It
shows a man wearing a helmet, life preserver, the beginnings of a beard, and
an unmistakable look of courage. Like many of Bishop's portraits, a feeling of
serenity radiates from it. "Father Doyle is the first man I had
ever known who had completely conquered fear," says Bishop. "I
saw him --- under fire --- remove his battle helmet and clamp it down over the
head of a gunner's mate who had lost his own." No doubt the mate felt
more secure under Doyle's helmet; it has a cross painted on its front.
Somewhere out on the ocean, Bishop says, he underwent a metamorphosis.
"There was some moment aboard ship when I said, 'For the rest of my life,
I will use my camera to seek the absolute sincerity in my fellow man.'"
It became clear that he could no longer devote time to producing artificial
pictures. "I made a pledge that, come hell or high water, I would keep my
integrity." Hell and high water came, and Bishop's integrity survived.
The first thing he did when he returned to Oakland was to close his old
studio. He then married Luella, moved to Berkeley and started over again as a
portrait photographer. His new approach, however, cost the young Bishop family
a few dollars in the beginning. Many people were reluctant to be revealed on
film as they were in the flesh. So, to help make ends meet, Bishop left Luella
in the studio to manage the phones and set up appointments while he hired
himself out as a carpenter.
The experience paid off later on when the Bishops acquired property for a
vacation home on Lake Alpine in the Sierras. They had long dreamed of having a
home in the mountains, but the chance to buy a valuable piece of land came
when their funds were low. They bought the land, and Bishops built the home
themselves, using stones and recycled lumber. Some years and three children
later, they built a larger home in Bear Valley, once again from scratch.
Building a home, says Bishop, is akin to taking a picture. "You must
visualize what you want before you begin."
Except for a modest listing in the yellow pages, Bishop did not advertise.
Instead, he relied on word of mouth referrals. For 52 years, referrals had
ushered more than 3,000 people into Bishop's studio, which doubled as the
family's home.
Bishop had a "mental list" of people he hoped to capture on film.
The University had been a large source of photo subjects. After the UC Press
commissioned Bishop to do a portrait of anthropologist, Theodora Kroeber, for
one of her books, Theodora called Bishop to do portraits of she and her
husband, Alfred Kroeber, throughout their Maybeck home. During a portrait
session with Glenn Seaborg, Bishop mentioned that he would like to do a series
of the University's Nobel Prize Laureates. The next day Bishop received phone
call after phone call from Seaborg's colleagues, calling to making an
appointment.
Although his subjects are not always celebrities, quite often they are. His
camera has focused on a veritable potpourri of the well-known --- from poet W.
H. Auden to comedienne Phyllis Diller. There had been talk of publishing a
book on the subject of his famous faces and the University's Regional Oral
History Office has a taped interview of his oral history.
Bishop's interest in photography began when he was well on his way to
another career: dentistry. One of his classmates' in Cal's dental school
bought him a camera, and "it was love at first sight." One of his
professors spotted his restlessness with dentistry and suggested that a career
in photography might suit him better. "I think I rebelled against
dentistry because it gave me a feeling of claustrophobia," Bishop says.
"Even wide open, the oral cavity is pretty small."
Bishop gradually upgraded his cameras (the first was "a dollar
Brownie") and then found his way to Big Sur, Ansel Adams, and Edward
Weston. Along with Imogen Cunningham and Dorthea Lange, they became his
mentors and friends. "I guess I'd have to say I believe in
miracles," remarks Bishop. "Photography's been good to me. Who would
have ever thought I'd spend an afternoon someday with Robert Frost and George
Stewart? Yet it happened."
"It's as corny as Aladdin's lamp, but I would shout it from the
rooftop if I could: 'If you really believe in something, do it. If you really
believe, you'll survive.' "
__________
Harrington, Lisa. "An Eye for an I: Portraits by G. Paul
Bishop." California Monthly.
- excerpts. 92, No. 1 (October 1981), pp. 15-18.
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