Malta 2008 - George Dawber

George commenced photography after an initial spell on a National Newspaper as a “Copy” Messenger Boy later graduating to the “Picture Transmission Department” a forerunner to what we now know to be the internet, this was in the late fifties. In 1958 he was signed up by Lancashire County Cricket Club at the age of 18 as a professional cricketer, he was an accomplished left arm spin bowler and rubbed shoulders with some of the all-time greats like Cyril Washbrook, Geoff Edrich, Roy Tattersall, Jack Ikin, Malcolm Hilton and Geoff Pullar to name a few. Unfortunately LCCC had no less than five left arm spin bowlers on the staff and had to release two of them after only one season, George was one and despite an offer from the great Colin Cowdrey to sign for Kent George decided to return to photography with the Commercial/Industrial company in Manchester. At the age of 21 his progress was interrupted by National Service where for two years he operated a station photographic department attached to the Royal Air Force Training Command. His main role was photographing helicopter crashes and sports events. On his return to Civvy Street he realised he had to make a career choice between professional cricket or photography George chose the later and continued his training with the Manchester company. He experienced a wide variety of roles including black and white printing, producing large wall murals for Granada TV, litho production etc. As an assistant on external site photography he worked with one of the “Characters” of photography who was so experienced he never used a light meter. On one memorable assignment George was expected to light the blue touch paper on the flash powder tray he was holding aloft when his superior indicated by shouting to a fitter working on some scaffolding “hold it Jack” which was the agreed prompt, the flash powder whooshed shocking the unsuspecting worker, who fell off the scaffold assuming the plant was going up in smoke. The photographer cursed the worker for moving during his long exposure! For his trouble George had his hair singed and the back of his hand as he was not warned to wear a hat and gloves!

He was ‘head-hunted’ in the mid-sixties which was about the same time he was to marry his wife of 41 years, Glenys, by a GP studio in Hazel Grove, Stockport. George was instrumental in growing this small operation into a multi-faceted outlet incorporating a camera retail shop, one of the first colour laboratories for social photographers in the Cheshire area and of course a GP studio to boot.

Married with three children all of whom have been involved in photography one way or another. The eldest daughter Zöe modelled professionally for many years then worked part-time in the business – as she has four young children she now resides in Perth, Western Australia with her husband Paul. Son Howard trained with the legendary Alf Coombs at Manchester Colour Laboratory before embarking upon a career as a cruise ship photographer for twelve years, after a brief spell back in the laboratory business he is now working in the studio. Youngest daughter Aimie, although persuing a career in hairdressing has almost been an ever-present modelling on Photo Training Overseas courses, which George & Glenys have been organising for 20 years. With three young photogenic grandchildren this is truly a family of photography.

However, in the early days the pressures involved in a management role rather than as a photographer eventually, took their toll and George and Glenys were involved in what is now known as ‘a management buy-out’ of the studio in the mid-seventies. They traded successfully for a number of years creating a number of promotional ideas including the highly successful launch of a Kodak ‘Under-Fives’ promotion with Ian Gee which was featured on television and which was the catalyst of years of location ‘in-store’ child photography business for the studio.

George & Ian Gee created a colour laboratory to fulfil the needs of their busy studios, which they located in Manchester as a separate business activity within another studio acquisition made by George and Glenys. However, it was soon realised a second social studio in the Manchester City centre was not ideal and they moved the laboratory to the Hazel Grove premises occupied by their other studio.

Many photographers will remember what were probably the first-ever organised seminars for wedding and portrait photographers in the UK in the early eighties under the sponsorship of Colourlabs International. The CI seminars as they became known featured George with Roy Doorbar and Ian Gee and toured the country, they have often been emulated but none have subsequently proved to be as successful or as well remembered.

In the mid-eighties George & Glenys decided to major on wedding photography, George had been actively involved with the British Institute of Professional Photography serving on the Management Committee of the North West region in the mid-seventies after a few years it culminating in him being Chairman. He helped to organise the first successful regional print competition and conferences which eventually BIPP HQ took over under his leadership and for ten years a handsome profit was made through these successful events. He became National President after serving on council for a few years
he was in fact the second youngest person ever to be elected to this office, John Rose being the youngest President at the age of 44 in 1983/84. He later acquired his Fellowship in wedding photography and so encouraged by his visits to America seeing the ‘Ma and Pa’ studios they decided to take a major gamble in 1985 moving from the High Street to a ‘home’ location and built a studio in the grounds of their property. At the same time selling the laboratory activity to a long-time friend and colleague Alf Coombs – Manchester Colour Laboratories retained its name and continues to flourish under Alf’s leadership to this day and in fact George still remains a loyal client.

Always innovative in business and marketing, George became involved in wedding album design after he was unable to find suitable wedding albums; he was taken on as a consultant by Mason Albums successfully helping to launch this company into the wedding album market. During this period he met up with Trevor Jupp a successful laboratory owner from Kent who was about to launch a marketing concept for social photographers which many considered to be way ahead of it’s time, again George was taken on as a consultant and the initial launch of a laboratory providing marketing support and training for it’s client photographers, with the intention of culminating into a form of studio franchising, it created quite a stir in the industry at the time. Alas ‘Imagine’ as it was known, suffered under financing and this brilliant concept went by the wayside. It is interesting to note several years later, similar ideas have now become successful under other entrepreneurs.

Prior to this George re-established links with Graham Rutherford who had moved from Kodak to Fuji Professional and together they created another great marketing concept – ‘The Fuji Professional School of Photography’.

This was launched on the first ever Fuji overseas training event in Tunisia in January 1988 the following year saw the launch of the Fuji Film Wedding & Portrait Awards again with advice and involvement from both George & Glenys.

The Fuji School went onto achieve great things for both social photographers and Fuji. In 1994 Fuji ceased to be the sole sponsor of the overseas training activity and the Dawber’s boldly decided to re-launch as Photo Training Overseas, introducing additional sponsoring companies, a broader based programme and many new speakers and ideas, the rest is history, as they say, with PTO going from strength to strength each year, the next event in Lanzarote in January 2008 will be the twenty first annual training programme. Almost as testimony to the value of such events Fuji launched the ‘Festival of Imaging’ in Cheltenham in 1998, the concept of this was clearly based upon the success of PTO.

George and Glenys are a hospitable and great sharing couple they have been involved in the industry now for over thirty years always available to help wherever they can. George serves on both the Master Photographers Association and British Institute of Professional Photography admissions and qualifications panels and continues to judge awards.

So what are they up to next, never standing still or assuming they have everything right and always moving with the times and trends and fashions they re-vamped their studio and now operate a contemporary operation in both their wedding and portrait markets. They continue to be involved in training although Glenys has taken a back seat in the business to allow the next generation of Dawber’s to move in with younger ideas. Son Howard is a very good social photographer in his own right, daughter Zöe worked in the studio before emigrating to Oz, and they are clearly moving in the right direction with full order books. George became president of The Master Photographers Association in October 2001 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the MPA.

In 1999 George decided it was time he made an effort to enter some photographic competitions to see if he was still producing images relevant to today’s marketplace. As a judge he felt it was time to re-sit an examination by other people and photographers before he felt comfortable continuing to past judgement on other photographers work. The first competition he entered was the MPA ‘Bride & Setting up Home’ competition a portfolio of 10 images from a single wedding to be judged by potential Bride’s. From a considerable entry he was one of the four finalists, and whilst being ‘pipped’ to the top accolade he was quietly pleased to be still doing the business, which obviously appeals to the current breed of today’s young people. Another competition which appealed to him was one he had been asked to judge the Guild of Photographers Craftsmen award with a top prize of an all expenses paid trip to the Wedding & Portrait Photographers International convention in Las Vegas, he declined to be a judge whilst he was on his mission – his portfolio of images again from a single recent wedding won him the major prize, whilst at the convention he entered one of these images entitled ‘Arriving in Style’ and became runner-up in the International Competition – content with this George has resumed normal judging and assessments for qualifications!

Meanwhile his wife Glenys moved into a role as a ‘Foster Carer’ and for the past twelve years has looked after children placed in their care who have come from unfortunate backgrounds. She achieved an NVQ level 3 and sits on Social Services committee’s and has become a ‘trainer’ for other Foster Carers wishing to deal with some of the extremely difficult situations such a role demands.

As President of the Master Photographers Association in 2001 and always wanting to be at the ‘cutting-edge’ and helping other photographers what did he achieve – well during his Presidency of the BIPP way back in 1983-84 his aim was to remove the bickering and animosity which had reached epic proportions between the two Associations. Meetings were held to reconcile differences and in fact so much goodwill emanated it almost reached a situation of the two groups joining forces, the then Secretary of the MPA Dr Roger Saunders actually agreed to serve under the then BIPP Secretary Philip Large however, the respective councils of the two groups would have none of this as they both wanted to retain their own identity.

At the same time relationships between the Professional Photographers of America and the BIPP had reached an all -time low with the pending severing of links George was despatched by the BIPP Council of the day to America to see if it was worthwhile continuing to be associated with PPofA. The President at the time was Ross Sandaal a straight talking Coca-Cola swigging tough Texan ‘In-Plant’ photographer, George and Ross immediately ‘hit it off’ and links were not only re-established but a closer liaison between the two groups resulted which there is clear evidence of even today.

George is conscious of an ever-changing photography marketplace not only in client’s requirements but also the industry itself being on a fast-track with new technology. Costs are inevitably escalating to all-time highs and it is clear to him many cost saving exercises need to be brought into play by similar groups working together on joint projects to the benefit of members and the industry in general. George makes no excuse for looking to bringing the MPA & BIPP closer on projects of mutual benefit and who can say he will not make this happen with his record of achievements to date from his unique position of having been the first person to achieve Presidency of both of the major professional photographic associations.

So what of the future – who knows says George, clearly digital will play a major part in all our lives and we cannot ignore change or progress if we do it is at our own peril. Clients are already ‘street-wise’ and are insisting upon casual informal images in both weddings and portraits, black and white is playing an equal role with colour, as for George & Glenys they are enjoying life trying to cut back here and their but with difficulty especially as the studio is in such demand with over seventy weddings this year and an average of 50 portrait sessions per month. So how do they attract so much business – provide the customer with what they want, keep up with fashions and trends, mix with young people, use subtle marketing techniques have impressive premises, look and be the part as a true professional.
 

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