H. T. Cowling — Little Close-Ups of the A. S. C. (1922) 🇺🇸
“Who’s Who in America” will tell you all about Herford Tynes Cowling, A. S. C, but here is enough to introduce him to the readers of The American Cinematographer.
Mr. Cowling chose Suffolk, Virginia, for his birthplace and graduated from the Suffolk High School.
In 1904 he began as an amateur photographer at Suffolk and has continuously worked at the profession ever since. His first work was in commercial laboratories and later in portraiture and he also had experience as a press photographer in Norfolk, Baltimore and Washington, D. C. This led to him taking a civil service examination as photographer, which he passed and entered the U. S. Government service in 1910 attached to the Interior Department.
In 1911 he introduced motion photography in the government service.
In 1913 Mr. Cowling was promoted to be chief photographer of the U. S. Reclamation Service and while serving here he designed and installed many government laboratories covering a wide range of photography. At George Washington University he studied photo-chemistry in 1912–13 to prepare for special work.
Mr. Cowling has conducted five photographic field expeditions for the Interior Department taking both still and motion pictures. In 1915 he photographed “See America First” and found time to be President of the Federal Photographic Society in 1915–16.
In 1917 Mr. Cowling resigned his government position to accept a commission with Burton Holmes Lectures to photograph Paramount–Burton Holmes Travel Pictures. He went abroad in February, 1917, and before returning to the United States in February, 1919, he visited the South Seas, New Zealand, Australia, The Philippines, China, Japan, Formosa, Dutch East Indies, Siam, Federated Malay States, Straights Settlements.
In May, 1919, Mr. Cowling hurried to Europe and photographed the entire theatre of war in France, Belgium, Italy, Austria, Czecho-SIovakia, also Southern France, Algeria, Tunisia, Tangier, Sicily, Spain, Egypt, Palestine, Constantinople, the Italian Lakes, returning to the United States in September, 1920.
The winter of 1920–21 he spent as technical director of the Burton–Holmes Laboratories and in 1921 made an expedition to Mexico, the Southwest U. S. and in August and September crossed the Grand Canyon.
—
Collection: American Cinematographer, February 1922
—
see here all Little Close-Ups of the A. S. C. (1922)