[GH85Carrera]

We did not bother with "safelights" except in the litho camera area. We made PMTs, and did a few halftones. Man, that a gone art. We used the same camera for the easy color copies like photos, or watercolor artwork. The oil painting and such had an elaborate polarized lighting source to eliminate the specular highlights. I shot a lot of 8x10 film for the folks doing separations for litho printing.

I remember the Cowboy Hall of Fame which is now the National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum brought over one of the signature paintings for me to photograph. They hired an armed guard to stand there all day and watch. They brought two curators and we spent the entire day getting a 8x10 transparency that was just perfect. That painting was only valued at 10 million.

The coolest one was when a local client hired us to got to Tulsa to the Gilcrease museum to photograph her painting by Leonardo da Vinci. She was selling it to the Getty Museum in California and they paid her 18 million for it. I got to touch it! Talk about pressure. Drive 110 miles, set up a 8x10 Sinar P view camera and the lights in a museum back room and photograph the painting and then wait until we got back to the lab to see if I got it right. It was perfect, and the Getty museum used my 8x10 transparency to print the catalog of the new painting. The painting was in the Gillcrease museum only for storage. It was not on public display. The had the storage facility to keep the humidity and temperature just right. And secure.