Ida Wyman
1926 -
Ida Wyman (American, b. March 7, 1926) was born in Malden, Mass. Her immigrant parents had arrived in the US as children, spoke English very well, but had little employable experience between them. They moved to Brooklyn taking the route of many immigrants who were not afraid of hard work, and opened a grocery store, working 16 hour days. They later moved to the Bronx, where Ida grew up.
The back room of the store became the family room, by default where Ida and brothers did homework and discussed plans for life after high school. Ida was planning on a career in nursing, though in 1940 she bought her first camera, an Agfa Chief, which cost $5.00.
She joined the Walton High School Camera club, which had its own fully equipped darkroom and photographers who lectured to the club. One of them, a Life photographer, thought that Ida should pursue a career in photography. It was through the club that Ida learned about the mysteries of f. stops, shutter speeds, lenses and focal length, as well as developing and printing. She bought herself a more advanced camera, an enlarger for a home darkroom, and began having her work in school publications.
Graduating before she was 17 years old, she was too young, by a year, to enter nursing school and decided to get a job as a photographer. At Acme Newspictures she was promised a job as a photographer once she had worked for a time in the mail room. She became Acme's first "girl" mail room "boy." After a few months, she was offered the job of printer, with the photographer's job still on the horizon.
After working at Acme for several months she decided to switch from a nursing career to one of news photographer, saving up for a 3 and 1/4 x 4 and 1/4 Speed Graphic, holders, flash gun and reflector, plus the custom made leather shoulder case, the mark of a news photographer.
She began taking pictures in her own Bronx neighborhood: street games, chalk drawings, architectural details, ordinary people and events. During lunch hours at Acme, she roamed the area taking pictures of life in the nearby garment center.
These personal walk around photos, where she got to know various neighborhoods with her feet, were the nucleus of work shown to editors. Some of those from 1944, appeared in Coronet and Pageant magazines.
Those photos and original story ideas which she worked up as photo essays, were what helped get assignments from Business Week, This Week, Saturday Evening Post, Life, Fortune, Time, Amerika, Parade and other magazines of the day. Whatever city her assignments found her in, she continued her walk around photos of everyday people and their lives.
The subjects for magazines ranged from politicians (Nixon and Reagan), human interest stories, labor leaders, community events (fund raisers, college dances), women's clubs, union leaders, celebrities (Cagney, E. Taylor,) veterans, social security protests, and various others.
During the eleven years she remained home as a housewife/photographer, she did freelance corporate work as well as numerous photos of her family. When she became a single mother, she didn't have the luxury of time to return to a freelancing career. She began working as a photographer at Haskins, a basic research lab. After several years there, she became Chief Photographer in the Pathology Department at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City, where the work was photomicrography for seminars and publications, conferences, portraits and other scientific photos.
Recovering from a life threatening illness, she left the medical school where she had worked for 14 years deciding to re-enter the world of photojournalism.
She began by shooting for The New York Times and The Herald-Statesman, a Gannett paper. Getting credit lines again was an important factor in obtaining other assignments. She began with assignments for New York City Business, American Lawyer, Travel Weekly, US magazine and various Murdoch publications.
Early magazine work was shot with existing light, off the camera flash, or multiple flash bulbs on stands, all connected with wires and requiring changing bulbs after each photo.
For the later magazine work, she bought a powerful strobe unit, three heads, umbrellas and light stands and taught herself how to use them. It was a far remove, from the #5's and $11 camera used in her early work.
A painful back problem put an end to assignment work and the necessity of pulling eighty pounds of gear. As soon as possible, she switched to stock work in both bl/wh and color. Once again, her stock submissions were derived from her walk around photos.
In 1997, she joined Soho Triad Fine Arts, a gallery in New York City. Since then, her work is represented by five galleries around the country.
Her work is the the collections of The Museum of the City of New York, Museum of Modern Art (NYC), The San Jose Museum of Art, The Columbus Museum of Art and the Photo and Print Collection of The New York Public Library.
In addition her work is held by private collectors and has been published in many books. She has been in numerous group and one person exhibits as well.
Since November 2007 through May 2008, her one person show: Individual Experience - The Photographs of Ida Wyman has been on display at The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art in Wisconsin.