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College Pride: Painting the New Hampshire State College sign, 1920 Photo by Clement Moran, University Archives

In the May 1940 issue of The New Hampshire Alumnus, Hertzel Weinstat '41 describes the late associate professor of physics, Clement Moran: "He was short and stocky of build, but powerful of body; his face was round and aggressive, and a gray fedora inevitably rested squarely on his head. How often have we seen him, in winter and in summer, bent over his camera, eyes glued to the ground glass, hands, white with blackboard chalk, moving the bellows back and forth—a solitary, perhaps lonely little man against the gray backdrop of long afternoons."

Artistic Icon: The late John Hatch, professor emeritus of art, 1998. Photo by Gary Samson, UNH Photographic Services

A recent graduate of Defiance College in Ohio, Moran came to New Hampshire College in 1914 to teach physics. He was also fascinated by the art and technique of photography, but his early attempts were not always successful. President William Howard Taft was making a speech in the New Hampshire Hall gymnasium promoting his plan for a seven-year presidential term. Outside, Moran had set up his view camera to capture the moment when Taft would strut through the open doors of the gym. But Moran fussed with his equipment a little too long and missed the shot—there would be no record for posterity of Taft's visit to Durham that day. But Moran missed little else in his long years as photographer, and by 1940 he had created a cross-indexed collection of 14,000 negatives and prints thoroughly documenting both university life and the Durham community.

What went into the making of a Clement Moran photograph of the commencement procession or a group of students digging a ditch to earn university tuition? Arriving on the scene, he unpacked, set up and leveled the large wooden view camera on its tripod. Viewing the subject upside down on the giant ground glass under a darkcloth, he composed the image, then closed the shutter and stopped down the lens. Everything was ready. He inserted a film holder into the camera, withdrew the darkslide and made the exposure. Returning to the darkroom, he developed each glass plate negative in total darkness. After the plates were dry, he made contact prints onto fiberbase paper. Later, Moran would eliminate imperfections by applying dye with a tiny brush.

Student workers: John D. Hoit '33 and Arthur Learmonth '33 earn tuition money by mowing T-Hall lawn, 1930. Photo by Clement Moran, University Archives

Clement Moran was the first university photographer—a man with the vision to create a photographic history of the year-by-year growth of the Durham campus. This massive body of work is now housed in Special Collections at Dimond Library.

Moran's pioneering effort paved the way for professional staff photographers to continue his legacy. From 1948 to 1970, Richard Merritt served as university photographer, and John P. Adams held that position from 1959 to 1986. This is where I come in as university photographer.

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