About the Photographer

Orville Luray Waugh (1909-1963) lived his entire life in Madison County Indiana. His family moved from Pike County Ohio to Chesterfield Indiana around 1900. Orville, the youngest of four and born of quite modest means, worked in construction early on and as a machinist later. Orville never traveled far from home. Essentially everything and everyone important to him and all of life’s major events were within a few square blocks in Anderson. Within that neighborhood were his parents, the families of his brothers and sister, many of his cousins, the girl he would marry, her parents and her brother’s family. All of his children were born there. His home is there and that is where most of my growing-up took place.

We do not know when or how he became interested in photography. His legacy of a few thousand negatives and prints suggest that it may have been around 1933, when his first child was born, and that it continued through the early 1950’s. While there are negatives from the early 1920’s, it is not likely that he took those pictures. Orville had a least two cameras that he used simultaneously: an Agfa Viking in the large 616 format and another in 120 format that could take either full or half-frame pictures. Both cameras were folding range-finders with non-interchangeable lenses and, I am told, he carried a large assortment of filters. He developed his own film and made his own contact prints and enlargements. Now, more than seventy years later, it is unfortunate but inevitable, that his negatives suffer the lack of quality chemicals and processes of a professional lab. So, it is perhaps ironic that his photographs should display such a level of artistic sensibility, composition and technical skill as to approach the level of a gifted, trained professional.

With today’s wonderfully capable digital software, it has been possible to restore his work to what he must have seen and hoped to produce later in the darkroom. I admit that I have indulged myself and exceeded the strict limitations of Photographic Restoration. I am most frequently guilty of filling blank voids with clouds, correcting perspective, enhancing reflections, using non-traditional colors of toner and colorizing. Only rarely though did I change his framing and composition because that is one of the most striking aspects of his work. Notice how deftly and consistently he achieved near perfect framing and aesthetically appealing balance using the long aspect 616 format. It is quite striking in this modern world of “square” photographs.

Most of Orville’s photographs are of his large extended family and he produced some wonderful ‘people pictures’. However, this first collection is focused on places and objects in and around Madison County Indiana. Some photographs that are clearly flawed have been included for sake of completeness and the telling of this story of Americana.

Compiling these photographs has been a wonderful and fulfilling experience.
I hope that you enjoy viewing them.
Brad Newby, grandson, December 24, 2006

All photographs are copyright protected.
Brad Newby 2006, Brad Newby 2007.
All rights reserved.