Frederick J. Weber as portrayed by a student from the Immaculate Conception School of
Jamaica Estates, NY.
I am the Photographer Frederick J. Weber and I was born in Austria in 1881. I started taking pictures when I was 9 years old, and by the time I was 15 I was carrying tourist's baggage over the Alps and taking their photos. I came to the USA in 1899 and first settled in The Rockaways.
I became a freelance photographer In New York City and lived there a while until I permanently moved to Jamaica. I started a photography shop with a partner, Peter Nybo for a few years before I went out on my own. I spent 50 years of my life documenting people's lives through my camera. I took many diverse types of photos, weddings, yearbooks, and everyday portraits. I also was the official photographer for The Long Island legal department, shooting grade crossing accidents, as well as The Chamber of Commerce and a local trolley company.
I used the large format 8 by 10 bellows camera until 1921. My negatives were glass plates. For parties and large crowd photos I used a unique camera called a "banquet camera", which the film frame was 6 inches wide and 16 inches long, allowing a lot of image on one photo. In 1966 I sold this camera to The International Center of Photography.
My photographs captured the essence of living in Queens in these earlier years, and today are valued for their journalistic rendering of a time gone by. The photos live on as a tribute to the photographic quality of the early days of photography.
Presented May 22, 2004 by The Richmond Hill Historical Society, Maple Grove Cemetery, and The Immaculate Conception School of Jamaica Estates, NY (Dr. Charlene Jaffie, principal).
Copyright © 2004 Carl Ballenas & Nancy Cataldi.
No claim to Old Kew Gardens [.com] color photograph.
No claim to Old Kew Gardens [.com] color photograph.
