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Sound good? Well, believe me, it was! But I didn't happen to be especially smiled-upon by Lady Luck; if you're a photo fan there's no reason why you, too, can't enjoy next summer in the mountains, at the seashore or deep in the north woods—at your hobby's expense! Just do as I did: convince one of the more than 7,000 summer camps in the United States that it needs your services as a photographer!

Being a camp photographer, as I found out, is a fascinating "job." It's a job in name only—for I've never had a vacation that was more fun. Just imagine weeks of working with your favorite hobby, plus swimming, hiking, horseback riding, taking life easy in the relaxed atmosphere of a camp! And getting paid for it all!

I GOT the idea of putting my hobby to work for me when I was, in school, and my finances were at a low ebb. Prospects for, a summer vacation looked dismal. I knew there would have to be a job in the picture, but after a winter of studying the thought of an office all summer made me shudder.

An idea struck me when I happened to leaf through a magazine with a page of summer camp advertisements. I'd convince some camp that it needed my services as a photographer for the summer.

I was far from an expert photographer; but I had a fairly good camera, some darkroom equipment, and a background of several years of dabbling in the hobby. I thought up all the reasons I could why a camp should hire me as a photographer for the season, and then wrote letters to a dozen or so of the camps advertising in the magazine.

Some of the reasons must have been convincing, for before long I had my choice of spending the summer at a camp in the Maine woods, on Cape Cod, or in the mountains. I decided on the mountains, and in June I packed my camera and enlarger in a foot locker and headed for a girls' camp high in the pine forests of the Smokies.

According to the arrangements I had made with the camp directors, I was to do two main things—make a complete pictorial record of camp activities, primarily for publicity purposes, and act as a sort of "photo counsellor," holding informal classes in photography.

For the former, I carried my camera with me constantly. With 200 youngsters turned loose in acres of pine forests, at the foot of a mountain and on the edge of a crystal-clear lake, I was never short of subject material. It was a photographers' paradise!

As for the classes, they consisted mainly in showing the girls how to use their cameras to take good pictures. Some of the older campers also learned simple developing and printing. Photography grew to be quite a popular activity, and by the end of the season it seemed as though almost every camper in sight was toting a camera!

It was a wonderful summer! Not only did I tremendously enjoy camp life, but the day after day working with photography was extremely helpful in polishing up my photo technique. Financially, the summer was a success, too. The camp paid me $200 for the ten weeks I was there; this may not seem like a great deal, but actually every cent of if was clear—my board and room and all the recreation facilities of the camp were provided free of charge. And in addition to this, throughout the next winter I sold innumerable pictures I had taken at the camp to picture sections of newspapers, high school publications, and photo magazines.

IF YOU, too, would like to spend a "photo vacation" next summer, the best time to start making your plans is this winter. Most camps have their summer staffs pretty well lined up by late winter or early spring at the latest.

The first thing to do is to find the names of prospective camps. You can do as I did: check through the pages of summer camp listings in various magazines (women's magazines and travel magazines usually have several pages of these during the winter) and pick the camps whose locations most appeal to you. Another source of camp names is the classified sections of telephone directories, particularly from large cities like New York and Chicago. Many camps from all sections of the country have winter headquarters in these cities. If you don't happen to have a large city directory you can usually find one at your local telephone office or place an order for one there. Or you might write to the American Camping Association, 342 Madison Avenue, New York City, for names and addresses of camps in the part of the country you prefer.

Your next step is to write to the camps and sell them on the idea of hiring you as a staff photographer. To many camps, this will be a new idea, and they'll have to be convinced. To make sure that you do get a job at one, write to enough camps—I'd say at least a dozen—because for any of a number of reasons some camps are bound to find the idea impractical or not feasible.

Here are some points you might bring out in your letter which should help you do a selling job:

You'll provide all the necessary equipment—camera, enlarger, darkroom supplies, etc., if the camp isn't already equipped so that there will be no need for an expensive investment on their part. (Nor on your part either, for that matter, for only the simplest of equipment is needed.)

On-the-spot photographs by a staff photographer will provide the camp with wonderful publicity material—pictures that a one-day-on-the-job commercial photographer could never hope to equal in variety, action and naturalness. Young campers who would "freeze up" and pose stiffly for a stranger will be completely unconcerned with a staff photographer who follows them around day after day.

Besides using photographs for direct publicity purposes in catalogs, yearbooks, advertising, etc., the camp can derive considerable benefit—and cash—by selling photographs and photo postcards to the campers, themselves. Nothing will exert a greater influence next year in persuading the youngsters to come back to camp than will photographs reminding them of the wonderful times they had. And their showing these photographs to other children who might be prospective campers will provide the camp with a lot of inexpensive publicity.

You'll teach the young campers the essentials of photography; you'll rig up a darkroom suitable for simple developing and printing (and you can safely wager that this develops into one of the camp's most popular activities).

You might also offer to take and edit a movie of camp life, or take color photographs to be made into slides, that the camp might show to groups of prospective campers and their parents throughout the next winter. (If neither you nor the camp has motion picture equipment or a 35 mm. camera for use with color film, you might rent what you need for a week or two—many large photo supply houses offer rental service of this type.)

WHILE MOST camps have a season several months long, many of them will be agreeable to your staying a shorter time, if necessary. One girl I know who has only two weeks' vacation from her city job each year, spends them as a craft counsellor at a camp. She's an expert on leather working and the camp is happy to have her on the staff for even so short a time. As for her she's mighty pleased with her annual two-week expense free vacation!

Another possibility if you have a full-time job but live not too far from a camping area is that you might be a "week-end" photographer, spending each Saturday and Sunday at the camp.

Camps seldom pay their staffs very high salaries during the summer, especially for shorter periods of time. Two hundred dollars for a season is considered fairly good. But when you take into account your board and room and all the vacation and recreation facilities the camp provides without charge—and which would cost you several hundred dollars if you had to pay for them—it adds up to a good total.

If you have any youngsters of camp age you may be able to arrange for their "tuition" in return for your services. Many parents do this regularly—a vacation for the whole family, free!

POSSIBLY YOUR camp will already own a camera and an equipped darkroom, but chances are you'll have to provide some or all of the equipment yourself. Following is a rough list of what I found to be essential items:

Picture taking equipment:
Camera.
Tripod.
Lens shade.
Yellow filter (K-2).
Possibly a dark red filter.
Exposure meter.
A synchronized flashgun, if possible.
Several photoflood bulbs and clamp-on type reflectors.
Darkroom equipment:
A small enlarger, preferably one that can be taken apart easily for packing.
Three eight-by-ten inch developing trays.
Film tank of size suitable for your camera's film.
Measuring graduate.
Darkroom safelight.
Contact printing frame or automatic contact printer.
Drying blotters and several chrome tins, or—better, a small electric print dryer.

First and most important item on this list is the camera. Almost any good camera, of course, will be satisfactory, but for best results it should have a fairly fast shutter speed—for activities of young campers move at a terrific pace. I would say a speed of 1/100th second or less is necessary. Also, for most convenience and best results, the camera should be easy to handle and quick to focus. I used a press-type camera for most of my work at camp, but in my opinion a twin-lens reflex is the ideal camera for photographing children.

If you have to travel much of a distance to reach camp, plan to buy necessary chemicals and papers locally, if at all possible. You might also buy some of the smaller darkroom items from a local supplier instead of bringing along your own. Perhaps you can even persuade the camp to invest in some simple darkroom equipment rather than have you supply it. When I went to camp I took all my equipment along with me, but by the end of the summer the camp directors had become so enthusiastic about photography that they bought a $300 camera and a complete line of darkroom equipment!

At most camps you shouldn't have too much trouble fixing up a small room or a closet as a darkroom. It probably won't have running water, but it should be adequate for the summer. Of course, if the camp is too rustic, beyond the reach of electricity, you can have all processing done outside at a commercial finisher. If you can get fast service, this might prove to be more satisfactory than attempting to get by with a makeshift darkroom.

WHILE IT would take many pages to explain how to take good pictures of children and camp life, here are a few suggestions that might be of help to you:

As was mentioned before, you'll be photographing a lot of action. If your camera is equipped with high shutter speeds and a large lens this won't be much of a problem, but otherwise you'll have to select your angle of picture taking and distance from your subject with care.

The nearer you are at right angles to a moving object, and also the closer you are, the faster your shutter speed will have to be. For example, while 1/400th second might be necessary to "freeze" a trotting horse taken broadside from a distance of twenty feet, 1/100th second or even less would "stop" the horse if taken head-on or at a forty-five-degree angle from the direction it was moving, and at a distance of thirty or forty feet.

Another thing, if you hand-hold your camera rather than use it on a tripod, don't use a shutter speed slower than 1/50th second or your pictures may be a little fuzzy.

Avoid, as much as possible, posing your subjects. Children are fine, natural subjects if left alone, but once they become self-conscious and start acting for the camera a good picture is hopeless. Set up your props ahead of time, and the necessary action will follow naturally.

And keep your pictures simple. Avoid trying to tell too much in one photograph. Stay away from cluttered backgrounds. The sky or a plain wall or dark foliage make excellent backgrounds. Particularly if the photographs are going to be used, for reproduction in magazines or catalogs they'll have to be clear and distinct.

But don't go to the lengths that I did once in trying to get a "simple" picture. I wanted to get a shot of a diver silhouetted against the sky. After looking over the set up I decided the best place from which to get it was in a rowboat underneath the high dive platform. I jumped into the boat, lay down flat on my back and aimed the camera up towards the sky. The diver bounced on the spring board several times and then jumped. It was a perfect swan dive. I snapped the shutter and congratulated myself on getting a super picture. But a second later I realized I had failed to take one important factor into account—the splash the diver caused as she entered the water.

I didn't drown, but from the deluge that hit me, for a while I thought I wasn't far from, it. Luckily I managed to keep the camera above water, but the few water spots that got on the exposed film completely ruined the "perfect swan." And I never tried to repeat the shot.