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Memories of Fellow Photographers
An online memorial for SBCC members
Rebeca Baylis 1957 - 2014 |
The South Bay Camera Club remembers Rebeca as our two-term President, 2006 - 2007. She brought new faces to review our photos and talk to us of their skills. We know her also from her help while shopping at Paul's Photo in the1990’s and early 2000s. She steered some of us to the South Bay Camera Club for education on the new digital cameras and to meet talented amateur photographers.
Few of us knew how intelligent, resourceful and intrepid she was. In the late 70s and early 80s she moved to Alaska after finishing her college education in CA and where she had been recognized as an honors student. She was to study Marine Life as part of her education but the funding "went down the tubes". She then started work in Anchorage, assisting a jeweler who worked in gold. There was a military (air)base nearby and, because of her skills, she was hired to solder (gold on) the Alaska seal on a special plane.
She also did aerial photography for the military. Because she was able to work a manual camera she was hired and was the only volunteer to ride in a cargo plane, looking out the open doors, attached by a bungee cord and wearing a heated suit protecting her from the sub-freezing temperatures outside. However the gloves she had to use were little protection.
She returned to the "lower 48" because a friend was sick with tuberculosis and she accompanied him to California for medical care. "If it wasn't for him, I'd still be in Alaska", she was heard to say.
Paul's Photo was to be a temporary job--son John came to life two weeks after she started work there in 1990. Thus his term with Rebeca's at Paul’s was almost the same.
In recent years Rebeca took care of John who is now 23 and her mother who today is 91 years old, soon to be 92. She will be missed.
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Irma Louise Rudd 1913 - 2014 |
Irma Louise Rudd passed away on Wednesday August 20, 2014. There was a small memorial service for family and close friends on Thursday. She was 101 years old.
Irma Louise attended Stanford and UCLA and became a schoolteacher in the Southern California area. She and her girl friend Florence decided to take an adult education course in photography. They enjoyed it so much they decided to establish a camera club. They called it the South Bay Camera Club. That was in 1944.
A few years after cofounding our camera club she married a fellow SBCC member, John Rudd, a sail maker, photographer and motorcyclist. Later she was fond of saying “A dark room is a wonderful place to fall in love.” She also learned to ride rear seat.
Irma Louise was an enthusiastic photographer and was one of the first Southern Californians to make treks to Churchill on Hudson Bay to photograph polar bears. She was always an enthusiastic supporter of the SBCC and an active participant in the S4C. On many occasions she offered use of her house for workshops and presentations. I was lucky enough to attend the last of those workshops in her home. It covered a favorite topic of hers, the photo-essay. She made a generous donation to the club to purchase its first digital projector.
Farewell Irma Louise. We will miss you but never forget you.
Bill Berry
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John Joseph Bohner 1950 - 2012 |
On Thursday, February 16, our fellow South Bay Camera Club member John Bohner passed away suddenly while photographing on the local beach. The South Bay photographic community was shocked and saddened. John had been a member of the camera club for over 12 years, and at one point assumed a partial term as president and served for the rest of the year. John spent his career as an aerospace engineer (rocket scientist). He was also a ham radio enthusiast and volunteered service to the Manhattan Beach Police Department and the LA County Sheriffs Department for communications support in emergencies and also planned events.
John enjoyed the photographic flexibility made possible by digital photography. His “pictures of alternate reality” were a delight to behold and his “straight” photographs were of professional quality. He took pride in his photography and was generous in sharing with others his methods and tricks of the trade. Most recently he had reacquired an interest in photographing astronomical subjects. He led a workshop on the best techniques and conducted a field trip
to Joshua Tree National Park to capture some of the images.
John is survived by his lovely wife Sharon of 39 years and son Ryan. A Memorial Service was held on February 24. Our camera club was well represented. You will be long remembered with fondness for how much you improved our lives.
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Keith Mellen Decker 1920 - 2011 |
Keith Mellen Decker, a 56 year resident of Torrance, California, passed away on Wednesday, October 12, 2011, in Woodland Hills, California. Born on January 31, 1920, in Dover-Foxcroft, Maine, Keith was 91 when he died. Keith had served in the U.S. Army during World War II, as a 1st Lieutenant, and led a platoon of Light Tanks, facing battle in Normandy and Central France.
Keith attended Foxcroft Academy, where he played football and excelled in his studies, before enlisting in the Army. After the war, Keith served an apprenticeship at Fay-Scott Corp. in Dexter, Maine, in Machine Shop practices. After moving to California, he received his diploma from Torrance High School and took a diversity of classes at El Camino College.
Keith worked as a Machinist and Lead man at Fay-Scott Corp. in Dexter, Maine from 1945 – 1953, and Northrop Aircraft Corp. in Calif. from 1954 – 1963; he worked at U.C.L.A. from 1963- 1986, as a supervisor of the Chemistry Research Machine Shop, where he and his staff of laboratory mechanicians designed and constructed research equipment, and he most enjoyed this work.
Keith was a member of the American Legion and a founding sponsor of the National Museum of the United States Army. Keith enjoyed travelling throughout the United States, especially to visit his relatives in Maine, and entertaining his family. He had a passion for woodworking, making clocks, tables, and birdhouses, and fixing anything that his family or friends needed help with. He enjoyed feeding birds and squirrels, observing wildlife, and caring for all animals. He was an active member of the South Bay Camera Club in California, and he was an awarded photographer.
He is survived by his daughters, Stephanie Code, of West Hills, CA; Diane Garretty, of Hawthorne, CA; sons Keith A. Decker of Riverside, CA; Victor Hewett of Ashburn, Virginia; his three sisters, Kay Merrill and Teresa Pratt, of Dover-Foxcroft, and Barbara Burrill, of Lincoln, Maine, several grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and nieces and nephews, who will miss him so very much, and are thankful for the time they had with him. He was preceded in death by his wife of 61 years, Doriene (Tash) Decker, daughter Sandra Mae Decker, and by his parents, Everett and Gertrude Decker.
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Homer John Lockwood 1909 - 2005 |
Despite our belief that he would live forever, Homer John Lockwood died on February 19, 2005, at 1:30 in the afternoon. He was 96 years old and very much alert.
Homer was a member of the South Bay Camera Club for over 10 years. He was also married to Florence Harrison, a charter member of the club, who passed away last year. (See Below) Both were very active and contributed immensely to our club. Homer was a remarkable person and at the age of 90 purchased a computer and was doing digital photography. He also was writing a book about his life's exploits that he just finished before passing away; it should be published soon.
Homer's ashes will be spread in the Alabama Hills, which he loved so much. He must have photographed every rock there. He was a remarkable person, one in a million He will be missed very much and will live forever in the hearts of all who knew him.
by Tony Maffei |
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Florence M. Harrison 1910 - 2004 |
After 93 years of a very eventful life, Florence Harrison passed away on March 4, 2004 in her Redondo Beach, CA home of 60 years. All of her early years were spent in Southern California. After achieving her Masters degree in Social Sciences she married Milo Harrison, an avid outdoorsman, who introduced her to the sports of rifle shooting and big game hunting, archery, and fresh and salt-water fishing. She excelled in all of these activities and even won an expert rifleman award for qualifying in the 200 to 1000 yard National Rifle Match course with the model 1903 military Springfield rifle. Being a female the government wouldn’t issue her the medal awarded for this achievement so her husband fabricated one and even inset a diamond.
To record their various activities they purchased a 21/4 X 31/4 Speed Graphic camera and set up a small darkroom in a corner of their bedroom. Florence soon had two children, Anita and James, to photograph and she was on her way. Her husband, Milo, was my best friend and I even helped her with her printing in 1936. She began photographing all of the neighborhood children and their pets that played with her two youngsters and developed a specialty for this field. She was using a 4x5 Graflex to help capture those fleeting expressions.
In 1947 she helped form the fledgling South Bay Camera Club and began her life’s work as a competitive photographer and winning her share of awards. In 1952 she joined the PSA and joined the CLICK CHICKS CAMERA CLUB. It is still a functional club without dues, constitution, officers or male members. . Their motto was “Out of the Kitchen and into the Darkroom”!
The PSA allowed her to express her full talent as a print maker and she quickly became a strong competitor and won the status of the FPSA rating with the five star, ruby, Steuben glass and Kinsley awards. She was also active in the affairs of PSA by attending conventions, serving on various boards and committees, and lecturing. Her PSA audio and slide program, “Clicking the Camera at Kids, Cats and Canines” is still in demand by camera clubs across the country.
Milo died in 1972 but Florence kept up her camera activities and married Ed Field, a pictorial photographer and member of the Circle of Confusion club in Whittier. Ed liked to travel and together they visited 11 foreign countries that gave her the possibility to take more prize-winning shots. China was so fascinating that she made five trips to that exciting country.
Ed passed away after a long illness and at the suggestion of our two families; Florence and I renewed our friendship and married in 1989. Our first action was to take a thirty-day trip to Thailand and China then purchased a motor home with which we traveled 100,000 miles in the following twelve years. Our trips covered all of the North American Continent from coast to coast and north of the Arctic Circle to Belize in the south. We shot photos all the way and developed the negatives from our 21/4 x 21/4 cameras on the spot in the motor home. Our biggest problem was trying to figure out who saw a picture possibility first and thereby had the right to enter it in the next club competition! As black and white competition declined and digital cameras became the norm we sadly put our cameras on the shelf. All who knew her will miss Florence.
by Homer J. Lockwood
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