A Panoramic Tale: Former A.C. Photographer Lived Life of Innovation
By Steven V. Cronin
Staff Writer
Ray Herbert didn't care if he became rich, he wanted to be famous.
He said this as he built and let go of successful photography businesses in Atlantic City and Atlanta. He said it as he experimented with innovative photography techniques that won him fans world-wide. He said it shortly before he died this month, financially strapped but happy in one of Atlanta's poorest neighborhoods.
At his death Herbert seemed on the brink of the international fame he'd so long sought. Now only time will tell if his dreams died with him.
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Ray Herbert could have been your friend. If you met him, he probably was.
From childhood Herbert possessed an easy-going charm that won over presidents and fishermen.
"It seemed he could make friends with anyone," said Atlantic City radio personality Sonny Schwartz, a longtime friend of Herbert's. "He had a rough, good-natured manner you had to respond to."
Herbert was born 51 years ago and grew up in Atlantic City's Inlet section. At 14 Herbert was a red-haired, freckled-faced kid hanging around Captain Starn's marina in the Inlet, baiting hooks, doing odd-jobs, making friends.
One of those friends was the late Frank "Parkie" Patburg, who ran the photo concession at the marina. Herbert became Patburg's assistant. He shot photos of the pleasure boats leaving the marina each morning then used his prodigious charm to sell the pictures when the sun-baked revelers returned at night.
After high school graduation it seemed natural that Herbert should continue pursuing a career in photography. Doors opened for him, his sister, Alice DaGrosa of Pomona, Galloway Township, remembered.
He worked as a photographer for The Press before getting a job at Central Studios in Atlantic City. Herbert was well-known around the resort, constantly cruising the city streets and Boardwalk. Atlantic City's legendary nightclub, the 500 Club, was one of his haunts. He was friends with its owner, the late Paul "Skinny" D'Amato.
Trade group photographs
Herbert specialized in convention photography, shooting group pictures of the trade organizations that came to Atlantic City. In 1967 he opened a small studio in Chalfonte Alley.
"He went to Skinny D'Amato and asked to borrow some money to buy a truck to haul his equipment around. Skinny said he'd give him the money, since it was unlikely he'd ever pay him back either way," Schwartz said.
By this time Herbert was married, the father of two boys, and his photography business was becoming successful. Two stories that appeared in The Press on July 17, 1971, provide insight into Herbert's life at this time. One shows a smiling young man with long sideburns and wide flowered tie receiving a local "Boss of the Year" award. The other tells how Herbert chased and captured a purse snatcher. Well liked and involved, the story of Herbert's life.
The convention business led to Herbert developing an interest in panoramic photography - the kind of photography needed to shoot those large group shots. In the early 1970s Herbert bought a rare 1904 Kodak cirkut camera. The camera was one of only about a dozen in existence, and few could foresee how it would change Herbert's life.
Panoramic obsession
If Ray Herbert was anything, he was enthusiastic. If you became his friend you were his dear friend. If something was going well it was going "FAN-tastic."
So it was no surprise that Herbert threw himself into panoramic photography: tinkering, developing new techniques, seeing what the cirkut camera could do.
"He had spectacular shots of Atlantic City at the beginning of the casino era, panoramas showing the old and the new side by side," Schwartz said.
This work also led to Herbert seeking out panoramic photos of the resort in its heyday.
"He bugged me and bugged me for whatever I had. He was really quite good at bugging," said Sid Schrier, owner of Photo Express in Atlantic City and former president of Hess Photography Inc., the longtime resort photo business. "I finally let him have some of the old stuff. He paid me for it, but he picked up some really good stuff."
Herbert moved to Atlanta, Ga., in 1973, gambling the Georgia World Congress Center would provide a steady flow of convention business.
While few in Atlantic City had paid attention to Herbert's hobby, his increasingly sophisticated panoramas attracted the notice of Atlanta's art community. It was there he invented a process that allowed him to shoot and develop panoramic pictures 6 feet long. He used the process on his travels, including his visits to Atlantic City.
Herbert's business was thriving. He owned several properties in Atlanta, including a home where he impulsively dug a backyard pond he dubbed "Lake Ray." Besides shooting standard photos of convention groups and sports teams, Herbert turned his camera on less traditional subjects: artists, dancers and residents of Cabbagetown - one of the city's poorest neighborhoods. Gone were the suits and flowered ties. He now dressed in loose, comfortable work clothes.
Herbert and his new wife, Patty, began to travel. They took the panorama camera to Hawaii, Alaska and California. The couple traveled to Egypt to shoot the ancient monuments.
"They were good times for him," Patty Herbert said.
Reshaping the Oval Office
Presidents of the United States figured prominently in Herbert's professional life. Early in his career Herbert photographed President John F. Kennedy. Shortly afterwards Herbert was thrown out of the White House for photographing new President Lyndon B. Johnson wearing bifocals. Herbert photographed Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan and snapped a well-known photo of Gerald Ford stumbling.
But of all the presidents he photographed, Jimmy Carter held a special spot in Herbert's heart.
Herbert met Carter when the future president was governor of Georgia. The photographer, however, focused his irresistible enthusiasm on the former president when the Carter Center was built near his downtown Atlanta studio.
Herbert documented the center's construction, including the digging of the Japanese pond that was the inspiration for "Lake Ray." He impressed Carter with a panoramic shot of the building's replica of the Oval Office.
"It's all on the one long, thin picture. The President said Ray was the only one who could straighten out the Oval Office," Patty Herbert said.
If Carter admired Herbert's talent, the photographer was inspired by Carter's commitment to improving the world.
"Ray did these paintings, 'Carter for Saint.' No matter how little money we had, Ray wouldn't let anyone pay him for the paintings. He'd insist the person make a check out to the Carter Center instead," Patty said.
Changing views
Seven years ago Herbert tired of the "rat race" of business and began concentrating on creating art with his panoramic camera.
The couple sold their properties and moved to a home in Cabbagetown, a blighted area of Atlanta containing dilapidated houses, drug addicts, and little hope.
Herbert and the neighborhood children transformed a garbage-strewn lot near his house into a small park, complete with red brick pathways and metal sculpture.
The man who once chased a purse snatcher in Atlantic City now worked to clean drug dealers out of Cabbagetown. He wrote columns for a local alternative newspaper, he called the police, he was shot at twice. As he fought to cleanup the area, Herbert also cooked meals for addict's children, who called him "Panorama Ray."
Herbert invented a mythology about his new neighborhood, peopling it with Cabbagepatch kids and fantastic creatures. He painted the figures on the walls of his home.
Herbert continued experimenting with his camera, developing a technique he called "the moving still." Taking advantage of the camera's slow exposure, he had his subjects move so they would appear two or three times in one photo.
"Ray's contemporary work was absolutely marvelous," said Vicki Gold Levi, a New York City photo editor and Atlantic City historian who shared Herbert's passion for preserving photographs of the resort. "His stuff was so imaginative and innovative. He lived outside the normal conventions but he was very dedicated to his work."
Four years ago Herbert became obsessed with painting. He routinely spent 20 hours a day in his studio. He painted on wood - using doors, sheets of plywood, anything that was available.
Money became a problem for the couple. Ray's decision to paint, plus bad business investments, led to financial hard times.
"He was happy. We had no money but we had a wealth of friends and good times," Patty Herbert said.
Changing fortunes
Although Herbert's financial outlook was bleak, 1996 provided reasons for optimism.
The Summer Olympics in Atlanta brought a deluge of foreign press to the city. When not covering the athletes, the journalists looked for human interest stories. They found Panorama Ray Herbert. The innovative and affable artist with six shows on display during the Olympics became the toast of the foreign media.
"The Georgia film commission named him one of the state's top 10 folk artists and that brought the news crews around. Ray introduced them to all the young artists in the area," Patty Herbert said.
Herbert's store of old Atlantic City photographs was also beginning to attract attention. The Walt Disney organization used a panorama Herbert had preserved for their new Florida boardwalk attraction. The producers of an upcoming Broadway musical, "Steel Pier," were also interested in Herbert's old Hess panoramas.
As the year ended, a German film crew completed a documentary about Herbert; and "the mayor of Cabbagetown" was telling friends he was to be the subject of a Japanese documentary.
Remembering Ray
There are many ways to measure the value of a life - the wealth left behind, the work accomplished, the number of friends who mourn your passing.
Panorama Ray Herbert's friends had to help pay for his funeral. These friends feel he went out of this world a rich man.
Herbert died of a heart attack on Jan. 6. The death was shocking in a man with no history of heart disease.
They held Herbert's wake in his house. For seven hours 3,000 people crowded near Herbert's intricate murals of cabbagepatch kids and mythic kings to say goodbye.
Friends from the old days dressed in suits and mingled with performance artists who painted blue tears on their faces. The neighborhood children, schooled in the rough justice of the streets, also came to call.
"One of them asked who had done this, who had killed Panorama Ray?" Patty Herbert said. "They were going to get whoever did it."
When the wake ended the friends followed the hearse up the street, crying and singing "When The Saints Come Marching In."
Carter, out of the country when Herbert died, sent a letter of condolence. Employees at the Carter Center gave Herbert's family a tour of the facility, showing them off-limits meeting rooms where Herbert's art work hung.
"They treated us like we were queens," Alice DaGrosa said. "They obviously loved Raymond."
Now the mourners have gone home and Patty Herbert lives in a neighborhood on the verge of renewal, surrounded by her husband's work.
As she sort's out her affairs, Patty Herbert is planning the next chapter in the ongoing story of Ray Herbert's life.
"My goal is to try to keep the paintings intact and set up some shows so people can see them," she said. "Ray always said he didn't want to be rich, he wanted to be famous. It looked like he was almost there. I have my work cut out for me."
