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."

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.

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.

I trace my appreciation for and love of photography to a summer job I had 30 years ago at the Manchester Historic Association. One of my responsibilities was to make contact prints from the glass-negative collection documenting the city of Manchester and the Amoskeag Manufacturing Company. This extensive archive of prints and negatives impressed upon me the importance of photography as a tool for sharing history with a wide audience.

After graduating from Franklin Institute in Boston in 1971, I came to the university as the photo lab technician under Jack Adams. In 1974, I began producing films and exhibitions on New Hampshire history and culture. It was during this period that I came to appreciate the importance of creating and preserving photographic collections for future generations. When I became the university photographer after Adams retired, I fully understood the significance of the collection of images that I and the rest of the photo staff were compiling. Every year, the staff photographer—Ronald Bergeron, Douglas Prince, Lisa Nugent and I—create thousands of images of university life, which must be available for immediate use by the rest of the university. Outdated negatives are moved to Special Collections for preservation.

Recording university life on film has changed dramatically since Moran began his study in 1914. Today, the university's teaching and research extend to all parts of the globe, and recent assignments have taken staff members to Washington, D.C., Anaheim and Belize. Each week, assignments take us to all parts of New Hampshire. Although we continue to use the view camera to make archival black-and-white photographs of traditional subjects, increasingly the demand for color imagery in digital form for Web and print use has reshaped the way we take photographs. Ironically, with all the technological advances of photography and digital imaging, Moran's beautiful black-and-white fiberbase prints may very well outlast the color images we are creating with current technology.

My personal approach to photography is not unlike Moran's. I want to create a comprehensive pictorial history of the university and to document the people and culture of New Hampshire. I see the process of creating a portrait as a collaboration between myself and the subject in the subject's familiar environment. That environment is an instrumental part of the portrait, revealing a facet of the subject's character. While I set up my camera, I try to draw the subject out in conversation and the ensuing dialogue will shape my portrayal of the individual. And like Moran, I prefer using a view camera and black-and-white film to capture subtle nuances of tone and character.

The story of the university is complex and ever evolving. Visualizing that story photographically presents new challenges—both artistic and technical—on a daily basis. Knowing that we are contributing to the rich legacy begun by Clement Moran 86 years ago makes those challenges a worthwhile and gratifying experience.

Gary Samson is an award-winning filmmaker and photographer. His work is in private and public collections including the Currier Gallery of Art and the State of New Hampshire. He is the author of three books on New Hampshire history.