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1957 was also the year that George Harrison Marks launched Kamera. Like Rock 'n' Roll, the public had never seen anything quite like it before. Kamera was published with a cover price of 2/6 (half-a-crown in 1957 prices or 12.5p in modern money, but that was equivalent to around £2.75 at todays prices). The original print run of 15,000 copies sold out within two days of the launch, so an immediate reprint had to be ordered. Again that sold out in days and, in all, over 150,000 copies of issue No.1 were sold in the first five weeks. George and his partner and model, Pamela Green, knew they were on to a winner. Their share of the proceeds, after deducting printing and distribution costs, was 1/- (One shilling - 5p) per copy sold. That is equivalent to about £1 by current prices. They went on printing Issue No.1 but Issue No.2 had been prepared. It was decided to bring the publication date forward and so Issue No.2 was published six weeks after Issue No.1 had hit the streets. According to Harrison Marks it sold a quarter of a million copies. From this point on it was decided to publish Kamera every month. If the figures are to be believed, by the end of the first three months Kamera had netted Kamera Publications about £20,000, which is getting on for a quarter of a million pounds in todays terms. The photographs reproduced in Kamera were retouched, where necessary, to disguise any sign of the models pubic hair or genitals, in order to try and avoid the danger of falling foul of the British obscenity law, which was pretty ambiguous in those days. This was the case throughout the 12 years that the publication of Kamera spanned. The reader could have been forgiven for thinking that all the models had shaved off their pubic hair. In fact probably less than half of them had. If they wanted to find out for sure then readers could write in for 10"x 8" black and white, un-retouched prints of any page in the book, but they would have to ask for them or they would be retouched like the magazine. Prints cost 5/6 each then or six for 25/-. These days such prints have, like Kamera itself, become collectors' items.
The sales success of the magazine throughout the late fifties demonstrated that Kamera offered a format that the public of the time wanted. Before long girls were queuing up for the opportunity to be photographed in the hope of appearing in the much publicised magazine. George made a point of interviewing all of them and photographing most of them. Only a small proportion of them ever made it onto the printed page of course. Some of the models who appeared in later editions - June Palmer, Paula Page, Lorraine Burnett, Vicky Kennedy, Marie Devereaux, Pat Rose and Rosa Dolmai like Pamela Green, went on to become celebrities in their own right. The success also made it possible to acquire additional studio space in the Gerrard Street premises. The combination of George's photographic skills and Pamela Green's creative flare changed the face of glamour photography. There was nothing crude or seedy about their photographs. With the expanded studio area it was now possible to build new sets. George's fascination with theatre and cinema and Pamelas talent for set design and artistic composition gave the photos that followed a dramatic and lively quality that set them apart from contemporary glamour imagery. Many of their nude studies, which emphasised the perfection of the female figure, had genuine artistic merit. Kamera may have been titillating, but it was also tasteful and graceful in the way it portrayed the feminine form. Without doubt this had a considerable influence on others in the field. The models featured were chosen carefully by George and Pamela, who not only had the eye to select appropriate models but had the talent to get the best from them in the images they created. The Gerrard Street studio, in the heart of what we know today as Soho's 'China Town', in the heart of London, was to become the centre of the nude and glamour scene. During the early 1960s the staff expanded to 15. These included the very creative Tony Roberts, employed originally to build the sets designed by Pamela, who became the studio manager. It is a deserved tribute to Pamela's talent for set and costume design that the famous British film director, Michael Powell, asked to copy her designs for a Parisian street scene for his controversial film, Peeping Tom in which Pamela was cast, appropriately, as the nude model, Milly. The Parisian set had originally been designed and built by Pamela for her red-headed Rita Landre character that featured in Kamera, Issue No.19 and Solo No.13. The set was also used as the backdrop for various models throughout Kamera No.22, which also contains a photographic tribute to the female staff of the magazine. 1958 appears to have been the peak year for Kamera, when, as far as we can tell (there are no publication dates on the magazines) the full 12 monthly issues were produced. In 1959 there were 11, there were 9 issues in 1960, 7 in 1961 and in 1962 only 6 issues seemed to have been produced. For 1963 through 1967 output was back to around eight. In reality, sales of Kamera and its associated publications had been falling throughout the sixties. This was probably mainly due to ever growing competition and to Kamera's failure to meet the challenge. In the mid-sixties competition grew with the new, larger and more colourful publications arriving on the British market such as Playboy and an array of daring continental publications. Then came Penthouse (1964), the first of the British A4 glossies and 1966 saw the launch of the revamped Men Only (Fisk Publications) and Fiesta, from Russell Gay, one of Georges old buddies. Sales of Kamera deteriorated still further and it ceased publication in 1968. The last edition of Kamera was to have been issue No.90, but it never made it to the printers. All 89 issues of Kamera are now available from us in enhanced digital format Get more info. |
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