In the summer of my second year at the Dispatch, if memory serves, which would have been 1968, a call came in one Saturday afternoon that the roof of Duryea Lumber Company had blown off.

As the paper’s part-time sports editor – I was going to college full-time – I had assumed a lot of extra duties, many of them designing advertising and newspaper pages, but I had yet to take a photo. That was about to change. With no “real” photographers available, then managing editor “Pidge” Watson gave me a crash course in using a Speed Graphic and sent me off hoping I’d come back with something worthy of page one.

A Speed Graphic, affectionately known as a “press camera,” was something to behold … and in my mind, fear. Picture today’s digital cameras that you merely point and shoot. Well, a Speed Graphic was nothing like that. For starters, it was slightly smaller than an unabridged Oxford dictionary and nearly as heavy. It had a bellows on the front of it with little dials along side for focusing. You focused through the lens but lined up your shot using a view finder that popped up from the top.

And all of that was easy compared to dealing with the film. A Speed Graphic used sheet film … 4 inch by 5 inch sheet film. And you had to load a single sheet for every shot. And make sure it didn’t get exposed to light while you did it. There was no such thing as shooting 50 shots the way one might with a digital. I headed for Duryea Lumber that day with just six sheets of film – six chances to get a page one shot.

Nervous as I was, as I worked the scene I was pretty confident I was getting a pretty good shot or two. I also started talking to people and scribbling notes. One guy who lived across the street told me he and his family were watching television in their living room and when they heard the crash they thought a plane had flown into their house. I told that story to Mr. Watson (William A. Watson, Sr., Dispatch editor at the time and Pidge’s dad) when I got back and he told me to sit down and start writing while a photographer developed my film. I was well into what turned out to be a pretty good story when Pidge Watson emerged from the dark room holding my negatives – my totally blank negatives.

“What the heck did you do?” he asked, sounding, to my relief, more disappointed than angry.

Did you do this? Yes, I said. Did you do that? Yes. He went through everything he had taught me earlier and every time I answered ‘yes’ until he finally said, “Did you remember to cock the lens?”

“Cock the lens?” I asked.

On a Speed Graphic, you had to cock the lens before every shot. It was the only thing I did not remember that day.

“That’s all right,” Mr. Watson said to Pidge. “He’s a reporter not a photographer and he’s got a darned good story there.”

“But what about photos?” Pidge asked, to which I sheepishly replied, “Steve Lukasik was there.”

They both grinned. One call to Steve Lukasik and we had a our photo for page one and others to go with the story I wrote.

Recalling that event following the death of Steve Lukasik on Friday, I realize that my quiet, four-word statement actually summed up Steve’s life as a new photographer. Not only was Steve Lukasik there that day in Duryea, Steve Lukasik was always there. He was the first on the scene at the Knox Mine Disaster in 1959 and his photos, which hang in the Anthracite Heritage Museum in Scranton, are legendary. His photos of a nursing home explosion in Harding were sent across the globe by the Associated Press.

For as outstanding a news photographer as he was, however, Steve Lukasik’s real talent was in portraits, especially brides. His Dupont studio is filled with trophies and plaques his bridal portraits won in prestigious competitions all over Northeastern United States. A self-taught painter, Steve mastered the art of coloring black and white portraits with oils. For this, he became legendary.

Steve, and brother Bill, operating as Lukasik Studios, were one of the “Big Three” studios during a time when almost every bride had a pre-bridal photo taken so it could appear in the Dispatch the day after her Saturday wedding. The others were Bufalino, of Pittston, and Rygiel, of Exeter. Brides would bring their 8 by 10 photos to the Dispatch in sealed envelopes with the promise that few staff members would get a glimpse of them before the wedding.

The Big Three were rivals but it was a friendly, respectful rivalry. So much so, that Steve and Bill Lukasik were pall bearers at the funeral of Angelo Bufalino several years ago. I can just picture the reunion “Buff” and Steve are having in Heaven today.

About the Author

Ed Ackerman is the editor of the Pittston Sunday Dispatch. He can be reached at 602-0175.

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