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Sonoma County, a diverse county of over one million acres is famed for its agriculture industry and recreation boasting a booming economy and a unique lifestyle for its citizens described by the famed Luther Burbank as the chosen spot of all the earth. Sonoma County is the place

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to live, work and play as we move into the 21st century. Led by the forward looking philosophy of its governing bodies. Sonoma County's 340,000 residents are a harmonious, successful blend of ethnic and economic backgrounds. We invite you to take a closer look at Sonoma County in

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the nineties with your host Rich McGlinchey. Hi everybody welcome to this edition of Sonoma County in the nineties were going to visit with the gentleman that visited with us about a year ago up at River's end. His name is Ted Castle and he is legitimately a

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world famous photographer. The man has a tremendous background and still photography in filming for movies and filming for television. Let me just give you a few of the little highlights of this man's career. He's filmed news and documentaries for Tv stations. He's Being a freelance cameraman

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and film producer doing industrials, TV commercials and documentaries such as some of the things up here. He taught photography. I think the thing that's very fascinating is he has two photographs in the family of man exhibit and that is a real accolade for a photographer. I

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often said when we were talking before I took pictures for 20 years. This is what you call a photographer. He also has a regional Emmy for film done for KR and Tv in san Francisco the Edward vii Mcquaid award. He has an I. F. P. A

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award for the U c D vet school film. As numerous awards from SAN Francisco Art Directors club. Ted has also assignments, had assignments I should say, covering major movie productions such as man on a tightrope Oklahoma beat the devil, the living idol, the way of love,

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cross swords, all of these things in one man and that man is our guest today and it's really a pleasure to see you again. We visit in between these shows and being a couple old timers, we shared a lot of things in our lives and it's

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a real pleasure to have him back here. But ladies and gentlemen, I? Re stress state and stress the fact that Ted is one of the finest photographers and I think you're going to see that in a few moments that I have ever had the pleasure of

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meeting. No, I know you don't like to work too much. No kidding. He works his tail off. But why did you go into photography? Why did I go into photography? Well, I guess for one reason when I was 10 I wanted to be a fine art

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painter and we were living in San Diego and my parents sent me or allowed me or got me into a art class at over one of the downtown San Diego and I've always sketched and always did this my whole life has been a visual type of

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thing. That's what I really loved to do. I got into engineering only because of the depression and etcetera etcetera. And I wanted to go to europe but I couldn't afford it to study painting. I got into engineering and worked at that. And finally, one day after

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the war I was working for Bethlehem Steel over in Alameda and I looked up and all I could see were back a heads and I like people. So I said, I quit and I put my pencil down on his desk and he said he was a

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good old Irishman. He said, hey, Mr Costello, you're given a great future. I said, well, I quit anyway, so I signed up for a photography class down in santa Barbara. Why did you quit? Because I hated that. There was no contact. Yeah, I was tired of

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looking back ahead. Yeah. So then I got into went to school and taught there for a while and then managed to save $1,000 and got three portfolios. And I actually hitchhiked across the United States to New York. And from that point on photography was my whole

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life right here. When And where did you actually start to become a professional photography or started it professionally? Actually, really new york city city. Tell us a little bit about that. Well, I got back there with my three portfolios and with $1000 and I made an

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appointment to see Edward Steichen at the Museum of Modern Art because he was he was the man in photography. Then. This was back in 1948 and I made an appointment to see him. And I showed him my portfolio and told him what I had been doing.

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And he said, well, I don't remember what they said. Ted or mr castle or hey, you jerk. He said, I think maybe you should have stayed with engineering. And I walked out of that building and I said, I'm not ever going to give up until I

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get some of my pictures in the permanent collection of the museum of modern art. That was 1949, In 1951. They took one and then in 1955 with the family man exhibit. Well, I had two photographs in that. But anyway, I think that Steichen, I know I've

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heard that he did this to other people and I think what he was trying to do is to try to prove or find out if we really wanted to become a photographer or whether it was just something to do. Very good method in his madness. That's

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a dangerous thing to do, is to tell a determined man. You can't do it. I don't really bring out the best. You've got to have the desire. Oh, absolutely. Well, you did obviously. How did you actually get started in new york. Well, I with my portfolios,

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I wandered around and went into magazines to see the picture editor and said this is what I've done and this is what I'd like to do. And you know, I kept knocking on doors and saying I'd like to do it, I think I can do it.

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And finally somebody gave me an opportunity and I managed and then I think one of the things that helped with a couple of my photographs were published in the photography magazines and the annual, Popular Photography Annual. And that helped to open up some doors into advertising.

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But you know, it worked and I I like I like working with people you mentioned before when we were talking, but I want the audience to hear this. What were some of your earliest assignments? Oh, real early. Well there was one that I did for Brooklyn

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Eagle. This was a newspaper in Brooklyn that was going out of business had been in business for 110 years. And I went over and photographed all of Brooklyn and booked and rebuilds. And then they used all those photographs in the newspaper. And that was one of

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the early ones. One of the other early ones was I went up to boston for Fortune magazine to photograph the shipping industry because they were in a slump at that particular time. So that's you know, one thing led to another. How long you been in photojournalism.

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How long have you been? Oh altogether altogether actually as a photographer because during the time after photography after I got out of a magazine work, I went into advertising and then out of advertising went into television and film. But I've always been taking pictures and even

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just a year ago I did a job for Alcoa and I went over to a factory in Martinez and Photograph there. So as a photographer, as a journalist, I still, you know, I'm still doing it anyway, I would say probably about 44 years. One of your

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examples that you brought for us today is supposed to be worth 1000 words. So I'm going to cut that way down to one. Why don't we take a look at some of these photographs that you brought with us today? And as these pop up, why don't

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you tell us what they are? And there's number one. Well that that's a picture of me, we're getting ready to go into the surgery. I had an assignment from an advertising agency that they were doing work for the Air Force and I was sent all over

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the United States to photograph. And this was a picture of me getting ready to go into this operation where this lady was having a breast removed because she had cancer of the breast Doctor Castle. That was that was dr ted okay, what have we got next?

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Oh that's my favorite animal. Oh yeah that's that's a beautiful horse and cowboy that was out on the location of Oklahoma. The movie Oklahoma. Now this man was not in the movie, he just happened to be a cowboy who wanted close to the set and I

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loved the picture and so I just photographed him from the movie Oklahoma that's been published now here is a series of photographs that I did for the State department. I was under contract for 40 days in 1951. And what we did and what the state department

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did was they collected and made stories and put them into a magazine called the USa and sent that to Russia and then Russia would send and get some of their pictures and stories and send to us. So this is the story of a family, a man

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in coal mines of Ohio and here they are he's he and his sons and all the rest of the guys are waiting to go down in the coal mine wow! Those are marvelous pictures and here is the sort of like the end of the day. They're

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all coming out of the, of the coal mine and you can see there are men there in the back, I don't remember his name now but he was a wonderful guy and here he is with a beautiful big smile and coal all over his face. Typical

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american coal miner what classic photos now here is basically the three people there are he and his two sons and this is the end of the day, they're getting undressed and getting ready to go into the shower. Now there is our man with a friend of

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his in the shower trying to get rid of all that coal dust. This is of a little welsh lad. The reason I took, he had his right toes cut off in an accident and if you look closely you can see that there's only a part of

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a foot there and this is taken in Italy of a dear lady that was cleaning and getting rid of some of the bad seeds and or grains of rice. This is also in Southern Italy. This was while I was on, were you standing on your side

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when you took this picture? I had fallen down, I had fallen down. Really? Anyway, this was on the movie, beat the devil and I wandered around and I saw that composition and I said gee, I'd love to get that, but I'd like to get a person

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in it. So I stood around and waited for about an hour until this lady came along and then bang, I snapped it and that was it. This is also in Southern Italy. Southern Italy and lady carrying a cast of wine and this is a man making

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goat cheese and he's greek. This photograph was taken in Greece, what city? I don't remember, have you ever eaten goat cheese. Oh yes, I love it, I love it, I love it. I love it. Uh, here is a couple of ladies. This picture was taken in

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Cairo Egypt and you know, I love taking pictures. So I wandered around and finally got this image and now here's here's a wonderful picture, elephants on his side again. Well, that's all right. I was in 1956. I went to Africa and Europe for Pepsi Cola and

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TW. A. And on this assignment I went to into Kenya and was invited to on a safari and out there on the safari we came across this elephant, what is he saying? He's probably say I'm going to get up there higher. Here's Africa again and these

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are the Masai, what is that? The messiah? Really? The warriors. What was the occasion for that? What was it? That was just a gathering of Oh no, it's a picture of Maasai people with their herds of goats. Now they use the goat blood to live off

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of, they don't kill them, but they just cut in here and drink the blood. This is down at the very tip. This is Cape horn in South Africa at the bottom of Africa and it was, I was up in the air that I was in an

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airplane. Open cockpit. Well what have we here now we come to after the magazine's collapse. Why I went into advertising and this was a photograph that I did in my studio in san Francisco for sun. I think it was sunlight or sunshine bread. Anyway, everything I

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had a three story walk up studio and that stove was in pieces and I carried it up, put it together, built the walls. Somebody asked me about the sunshine coming through the window and that's not sunshine but a good spotlight. Anyway, it was a lot of

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fun. I enjoyed it. Here is a photograph that I took for business week. You mentioned this before. Now this is a real first, isn't it? Yes, go ahead. This was one of the very, very first microchips that had ever been been made and business week wanted

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to do a story on this whole new industry and so they gave me that that unit and said here photograph it. Well, I thought well gee how do I get to show how small it is or how big it is. Excuse me. And I said maybe

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I could get my finger in or maybe a ruler. Oh no! So I sent away to los Angeles for a colony of ants. I put that thing on my, on the table in the studio and let the ants crawl all over it and bang with the

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strobe and that's it. Well listen, let's pause right here for a moment and then we've got some more of these pictures here and I want you to tell us about each and every one of them. I have some other questions to ask you about your career

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in photography. Ladies and gentlemen, my guest on this edition of Sonoma County in the nineties is Ted Castle and he is a world renowned photographer and I think you'll see why as a result of some of those pictures you've already seen and some you're going to

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see in the second half. We'll be back right after this message. When I was 17 I found out I had a chevy knowing I could die has been scary. But what's worse is that all my friends are still doing what I did that got me infected

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down and we'll only be gone a few minutes. They'll be fine in the wild cats know how to fend for themselves every day in Sonoma County, precious life becomes the target of neglect, abuse or accident fortunately there are people working to stop the silent suffering of

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animals but they can't do it alone. They need your help, find out what you can do. Call the Humane Society of Sonoma County. Welcome back everybody to this edition of Sonoma County in the 90s and we have a very special guest with us today. Ted Castle

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who I've said before and will repeat is a world famed photographer. He has done every kind of photography. There is I think he's used every 16 millimeter camera that was ever created his still photography we're looking at today and it is just fantastic. As I told

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you early on, he's the holder winner I should say of several awards in many different fields and ted let's just go on. First of all you said you're back 44 years or so in the field. Okay, well then let's go on right now and take a

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look at some more of these photos and you tell us this one is of Mr, Kyser the photograph was taken for business week and they business week wanted me to photograph them so they could use it as a full page or just as a as a

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column picture. So that's why the image of the man is kind of small. Doesn't take much space in the in the area, but that's the way they wanted it. And so I did it Now. The other the next one is of of Mr Zellerbach I think

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it was Zellerbach. But anyway it was for the Zellerbach company and you can see in the background rolls and rolls of paper And this one is that the President and Chief Executive Officer of Bank of America. These photographs by the way were taken for as I

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said for business week and around 1960s, do you remember his name? I don't remember, I'm sorry but he was the president of America at that particular time. I think it was the Bank of America. I hope so. Anyway, this photograph is again, I wanted to show

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that I'm not just a 35 millimeter snap bang bang. But that was taken with I think probably my four but five or eight by 10 I had a photograph, I mean cameras all the way from 35 up to 28 by 10 and I did all the

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eight by 10 work in the studio. But this is out on location for a company. This next photograph by the way Rich is a photograph that I was advertising. It took me a whole week to make. Now that is three layers of those outlets and I

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had to have three layers to make them seem to float in the air. But also each one I didn't want if I had them all together I would cast shadows from one to the next. So this way they're all separate but each had to be manipulated

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or the light had to be changed so we didn't get any reflections. And that was it turned out. But one funny thing about that was I was telling another painter, art advertising fellow and I said this job took me a whole week and it only I

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only got something like $600 for it. He said gee you ought to see mine, I did this and it took me one day and I got $800 for it. So you know there you go. Uh this photograph was taken for Monsanto chemicals and they wanted to

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show the um pollution or anti pollution or no pollution. And so I was sent out to get this and I didn't know what I was going to get into and when I got out there I realized that I could not get the picture that I wanted.

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So I got out of my boat, got into the water, no no rubber shoes or anything like that. Just got in there because I wanted to get right down on just above the surface of the water to get that. It was, it was fun. You know

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what the heck? I enjoy photographs and while I have the camera in front of me, I don't get scared of anything. You know it doesn't bother me at all. But that that was, that was kind of fun. It took a good day. Well ah well this

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is down in Mexico, I was covering a movie called the Living Idol and it was, it was a wonderful movie done done in the yucatan peninsula. We also worked in the studios in Mexico city but on location, it was down in the yucatan peninsula where the

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Mayan ruins were. And it was just fascinating. Anyway in the movie, there was a leopard that well he wasn't really a leopard but he the trainer was trying to train this lion and you won your training animals, you have to be with them every single day.

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So this guy one day came along and jumped on top of me and learned licking my head. And I'm telling you, it was like, it was like a rough course file on my, on my head. But it was fun. It was great. I enjoyed it. Oh,

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those are fantastic, fantastic Richard. And that represents about you said 44 or 45 years. In one thing I would like to mention that it's come up recently with this business of man against man and race against race. I've always, ever since the magazine or the exhibit

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came out. The family of man shows that we all if you get scratched, I don't care whether you're black, yellow, brown, green, we all bleed red blood. We all have hopes. We all have high points in our lives. We all have. And I say that if

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you want to understand what life is all about, look at the family of man and it shows that we're all equal. We all hope we all love. We all hate. And this is that's one of the reasons why I'm so proud of being a part of

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that family man exhibit. Well, I'm not sure that this is a proposed at the moment, but I mean a phrase that someone once said to me in regard to prejudice or anything of that nature between the races said when we came out of the womb, neither

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one of us had anything to say about whether it be male female, Black, white green. So how can you take such great pride and whatever you are when you get here, nothing whatsoever to do with it. But then suddenly you assume always so racism has no

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place in this world anymore. Never did. But unfortunately a long time for us to learn that, what would you think were your most interesting assignments over the year? Well I really enjoyed going to Africa for Pepsico and away and then the other things when I got

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into the film business I did a I did all the filming for Bart and from the time that they had their first trial vehicle on track and it only went something like maybe a quarter of a mile. But anyway I was in the tunnel in the

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Berkeley Hills when they were going from west to east and east to west and joined. Then I've also down underneath the bay in the tube when it was still you know going and also a pressure chamber in san Francisco where you had to go down and

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sit in this pressure chamber so you could get acclimated to whatever area and I don't know, I just loved, I enjoyed all of the work, All of the assignments that I had. One other one that I enjoyed was for television did a documentary on fire fighting

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and that was interesting. I enjoyed that. And up all night long watching these beautiful trees go down. So you know, I like that. I know you have a picture very rare picture being shot today of the only time the Turks and the Greek Army ever got

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together. And that was from many years ago. But that was, that was taken in 1953 for NATO. They had a NATO maneuvers in the Mediterranean and the Greek army and the Turkish armies were all their intermingling the first time, the last time they were there together

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peacefully. Good. A couple of minutes left. I think some basic instructions for any beginner and photographer in photography. Oh, okay. Basic instructions. I think I could teach you how to operate a camera inside of maybe an hour. But the most important thing for anyone if they're

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going to become a good photographer. And this is what Steichen told me fill up the frame with what you want, not waiting until you get into the studio and then cutting down for your print, get in tight if you want to. I want to photograph, you

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photograph just like this. So also composition is a very, very, very important thing. And for anyone who is in or wants to become a photographer. I think that look at at the art, the paintings and now the photograph of the artists and and find photographers and

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learn from them. The composition because composition is a very important thing. Um keep, keep working at it and love it, enjoy it. Yeah. Alright kid we're down to about a minute and I wanted to add a couple of things here. Ladies and gentlemen, one of the

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things Ted Castle will never tell you about himself is his community efforts. Ted is a supporter, a strong supporter of community television. I know with the K. R. C. B. A public broadcast, which post newsweek also assists in a lot of ways. Ted also works with

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several charitable organizations. I know he's serving food at the Salvation Army I believe it is or the kitchen downtown during the holidays and many other times he takes great joy not only in photographing and depicting human beings but in working with them and serving them and

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loving them. And I think that's about, that's about the pinnacle of what a man can aspire to. Thank you. Just thank you for honoring us with all these terrific photos and we'll have you back. You got so many more will have to do that. Ladies and

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gentlemen, my guest has been Ted Castle world famous photographer. My name is Rich McGlinchey. I had to stop and think about that one for a minute. The program Sonoma County in the nineties. I'll be back with you next week with another member of the county government

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family or a fascinating individual like Ted Castle until then. Good night, good luck and good health to each and every one of them. Thank you.