Worth a Thousand Words

Rummaging through decades of photos uncovers gems that deserve another look.

By TCU Magazine

November 8^th, 2023

By Jeff Wilson

Long before Polaroids, digital cameras and cellphones, photography could be a labor of love.

An image first needed to be captured on film, but only after the photographer worked a lens to bring everything into focus. The film then had to be developed in a darkroom of a photo laboratory to avoid exposing it to too much light.

Even if all went right, the shot might not come out as imagined.

A constant in photography, which has spanned technologies, is the eye of the photographer. Something at some point — be it a beautiful sunset, a family trip or a rare sight — strikes the person behind the camera, and with one click the moment becomes permanent.

Over 150 years, TCU’s photo archives have expanded exponentially. Many photos have been left behind — be it at the bottom of a filing cabinet or with no context or little information other than a date or a subject.

As TCU Magazine’s photo coordinator/archivist Robert Carter said, those images “just are.”

Note, though, what might have drawn the photographer to them: a cool combination of colors, a happy face, a touching moment or a lighthearted one.

Take the photo above, which was simply labeled “Instructional media 1964.”

The forward stare of the male student. The look of apprehension of the female student. Both appearing to be the only people in the film storage room where something terrible is about to happen.

When did Alfred Hitchcock shoot a film at TCU?

He never did, even though this photo looks as if it were pulled from one of his movies in the 1960s. And that might have been what the photographer who captured these two students was thinking.

It is a captivating photo, like others Carter found on a hunt for the Fall 2023 special edition that commemorates TCU’s sesquicentennial. The images are worthy of being seen now, just as the photographers thought they were back then.

Work and Play

The Rat Olympics debuted in 1971 as part of the Fundamentals of Motivation course in the psychology department, and the games were held annually into the 1980s. Rats, like this little cutie, would be trained to compete in the broad jump, high jump and hurdles as students learned about motivational techniques.

Weighing In

The photographs of Linda Kaye ’63 chronicled life and events at TCU from the late 1950s through the early 2000s. In 1971, an experiment in the psychology department provided an opportunity to showcase her talent for capturing the nuances of light and shadow. This bird was the perfect model. Courtesy of TCU Library Special Collections | Linda Kaye

A Big Deal

That isn’t your ordinary chemistry professor sitting among the tools of his trade. That’s Henry Hardt, TCU professor from 1946 to 1967, chair of the chemistry department from 1946 to 1961, athletic council chairman, Southwest Conference president and NCAA president from 1961 to 1962. Hardt left TCU in 1967, four years after this photo was taken. 1967 Horned Frog Yearbook

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