Road to Photo Fame Was Paved With Baby Pictures

George A. Tice was just 14 when he joined a camera club, but it was not until he was 20 and about to leave the Navy that he snapped a picture that would change his life.

Tice joined the Navy and became ship photographer on the aircraft carrier Wasp. The Wasp was 300 miles from port in 1959 when he saw an explosion aboard and ran to the flight deck, camera in hand, to find crew members pushing burning helicopters overboard.

The sailors’ shirts were drenched and clinging to their bodies. It made for a very dramatic picture, which the wire services picked up and carried to the New York Times, which published it. The photograph caught the attention of Edward Steichen, director of photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Steichen decided that the picture earned Tice a place in his museum.

Tice also remembers selling his first art photograph--a shot of two Amish boys that had appeared in a newspaper. A reader wrote him and asked to buy a print. Tice sold it for $15. Now, after finishing his 10th photography book, the same print sells for $700. Some of his other prints sell for $350.

Photographs from Tice’s newest book, “Hometowns: An American Pilgrimage,” are on exhibit at the Susan Spiritus Gallery in Costa Mesa until July 2.

“Hometowns,” which Tice considers his favorite book, concentrates on this country’s streets and back roads.

The 50-year-old chronicler of the urban landscape documents the hometowns of James Dean (Fairmount, Ind.), Ronald Reagan (Dixon, Ill.) and Mark Twain (Hannibal, Mo.).

Tice’s favorite shots include one of an old barber in Hannibal in which he portrays an era gone by, and the photo of the Delta Queen riverboat docked in Hannibal. He had composed the picture with the Delta Queen when a vintage car pulled up next to the riverboat and parked. The driver got out and snapped his own picture, saying that he and his wife took their honeymoon on the Delta Queen years ago. The addition of the car was like a gift, so Tice used it in the photo.

Using an 8-by-10-inch view camera, Tice says he enjoys taking a very complex subject and giving it order within his picture. Tice, a photographer since 1953, says photography has not improved since it was invented.

“It began as a complete, perfected thing 150 years ago this year,” Tice says from his home in Iselin, N.J.

There are few color photographs in Tice’s portfolio because he believes that black and white is much more subtle.

He says color photos look as if they were all taken by the same photographer, while black and white allows the individuality of the photographer to come through.

Tice was fortunate to be noticed early in his career, but it was many years before he would be known to other photographers as George A. Tice, master photographer and printer.

He had to work many years as a photographer of babies, at $1.50 per sitting, before he started to get noticed. Tice, a father of five, moved his family to California, hoping that his luck would change, but when the money ran out, he found himself back as a baby photographer at a Hollywood studio.

It was the opening of the Witkin Gallery in New York in the late 1960s, the gallery that still represents him, that made it possible for him to survive as an artist.

After more than 35 years of clicking, Tice still considers each shot very seriously before he snaps it. “If people just shoot, shoot, shoot, you’ll never live to print all the pictures,” he says.

Tice cites the example of one photographer who died “with hundreds of exposed rolls of film (that were never printed). It just doesn’t mean much. . . . Each photograph should be strongly felt before you take it.”

Photographs from George A. Tice’s newest book “Hometowns: An American Pilgrimage” will be on exhibit until July 2 at the Susan Spiritus Gallery in Crystal Court at South Coast Plaza, 3333 Bear St., Costa Mesa. Gallery hours: Monday through Friday 10 a.m. to 9 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m to 6 p.m. and Sunday 12 to 5 p.m. Admission is free. Information: (714) 549-7550 .