Alongside old cameras, one of my other passions in life is jazz music. Last year, I took a punt and bought a 3×4 Graflex Super D on ebay sold ‘as is’ by an auction house in New York. When it arrived it had an intriguing sticker on the side of the attached ‘bag mag’ with a name, an address in Queens, New York and an offered reward for safe return. Intrigued, I did some research and discovered that the name and address was for a very famous jazz photographer from the ‘golden age’ of jazz…one William P. Gottlieb (1917-2006).

You will certainly know some of his images, which include iconic pictures of Louis Armstrong, Ella Fitzgerald, Sidney Bechet, Django Reinhart, Lionel Hampton, Dizzy Gillespie and many others. Gottlieb is known to have used a 3×4 Speed Graphic and retired from his career as a jazz journalist for Down Beat magazine at the end of 1948. I believe the serial number (458021) on this Super D dates it to late 1947 or early 1948, so it’s entirely possible that he switched to a Super D for the last year of his career and that this is his very camera. It’s also possible, of course, that the bag mag was from his Speed and somehow ended up on this Super D that he may, or may not, have ever owned. However, further evidence that this could have been his comes from this essay on the Library of Congress Website which talks about Gottlieb’s cameras and states: “the bulk of Gottlieb’s photographs were taken with the Speed Graphic, although a few were produced with a Graflex and a Rolleiflex”. This, therefore, is most likely the ‘Graflex’ referred to.

Gottlieb’s entire collection of negatives is now held by the Library of Congress in Washington DC. He donated them to the nation, copyright free. When I discovered this I thought it would be great to reunite the camera with the negatives so I wrote to them, told them of the return sticker I had found on the camera and offered to sell the camera to them for the small amount I paid for it if they wanted it for display. They wrote back to say they have no budget for cameras, but one of the curators was interested in buying it from me. I replied that if it wasn’t going on public display, I’d rather keep it and use it myself, given my own personal interest in jazz history (and old cameras).

I really like this camera, it’s a lot easier to handle and lighter than my 4×5 Series D. It has the standard 152mm f4.5 Kodak Ektar lens that was one of two options for this model. I also really like the bagmag. Holding 12 sheets of film and with the SLR structure of the Super D, this combination is like shooting a medium format camera. It’s just as quick to shoot and move to the next sheet of film. If you own or acquire a camera like this with the old style Graflex back, do not be tempted to convert to a Graflok as many do! Get a bagmag and you’ll never look back.

I’ve been using it for portraiture in the hope that some of Gottlieb’s talent will rub off on me. It’s a real shame that it’s almost impossible to find film in this format. Adox made it until recently but stopped. The only on-going manufacturer is Shanghai out of China and while I like the contrast of that film, it’s just not sharp.

The solution is to cut down 4×5 film and I can cut down 12 sheets of Fomapan 100 in about 10 minutes in the darkroom….obviously at great risk to my fingers in complete darkness.

The gallery below shows the camera with Gottlieb’s address sticker on the bagmag (officially called a Graflex cut film holder) and the statement: ‘Return If Lost-Reward!’ I’ve also included a selection of images taken by Gottlieb during 1947 and 1948. These are not my photographs but are Copyright free and so used as such. These dates coincide with the date of the camera, so if he did start using this 3 1/4×4 1/4 Graflex Super D instead of his 3 1/4×4 1/4 Speed Graphic then they would have been taken with this very camera. Either way, the bagmag was certainly his. All the jazz photos are from the Library on Congress. Note that I have obscured Gottlieb’s address on his return sticker for privacy in case his family still own the property.