Equal Before the Lens: Jno. Trlica's Photographs of Granger, Texas. - book reviews

PSA Journal, Sept, 1992

In the days when portraits could be made only by a painter and a subject working together during long sittings, portraits were the province of the rich. Photography democratized portraiture in theory, but in the small studio of a Czech American photographer in segregationist Texas, the art of portraiture really did cross all racial and economic lines. Equal before the Lens: Jno. Trlica's Photographs of Granger, Texas, a new book by Barbara McCandless, presents a photographic cross-section of rural community life that is rare and intriguing.

The style of Trlica's portraits bore the influence of the Eastman Kodak Company standard of Commercial portraiture. The Kodak marketing strategy was modern and growth oriented. The company created a traveling school that would train photographers in smaller communities like Granger, Texas, located north of Austin in Williamson County. Training was not merely technical; it emphasized increasing business. To boost sales of the photographers the company trained, Kodak began a nationwide advertising campaign in major magazines, and smalltown photographers were encouraged to cut out the ads and post them in the windows of their studios. The ad campaign was designed to show what people "owe to friends and relatives and to posterity - with perhaps a little tickling of their vanity." Kodak was thus suggesting that portraits were not luxury item but part of one's responsibility to community and family. It was a shrewd move for Kodak; they succeeded in making formal portraits an integral part of such rituals as weddings and graduations.

Together, Kodak training and Czech traditions of brotherhood and community encouraged Trlica to do business with all segments of society. Committed to the idea that portraits should be available to all, Trlica gauged his prices and studio styles so that the poorest farm worker would be able to afford a sitting.

The portrait business boomed in the 1920s, but during and even after the depression, it never recovered to the levels of the 1920s. Many people began taking photographs themselves, and Trlica tried to sell the studio but no offer satisfied him. The success of his other ventures continued to support the studio, and he continued to document the Czech community's events.

Barbara McCandless, $34.50. Published by Texas A&M University Press, Drawer C, College Station, TX 77843-4354.