THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, November 6, 1995 TAG: 9511060163
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY LINDA MCNATT
STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ISLE OF WIGHT LENGTH: Long : 103 lines
At 73, dressed in blue jeans and a flannel shirt, Carlton O'Neal looked more like a farmer than a legend.
And nobody guessed - until he told them - that he had cooked the split pea soup he sipped from a cup and encouraged guests at his party to taste.
But it wasn't O'Neal's soup or his enthusiasm for life, or the missing turtle he was helping some little boys search for, that brought some 40 guests to his circa-1870 house for a celebration Sunday.
O'Neal's talent for taking portraits - his reputation for capturing the very soul of his subjects - was the attraction at the 50-year anniversary party he organized. And everywhere, there was evidence of his life's work.
Photos, paintings and portraits tucked into every corner. Gracing every room of the old house were photographs spanning a half-century. They hung in the barn, too, which is being renovated for yet another studio, O'Neal's seventh since he started in the photo business in 1945.
``Carl is not only an outstanding photographer, he is an outstanding individual,'' said Dick Aufenger, a Norfolk portrait photographer who has been O'Neal's friendly rival for years.
O'Neal started his career in portrait photography on Brook Avenue in Norfolk. It was at the end of World War II, he recalled, when pictures of pinup girls were popular.
So he took portraits of local young women and displayed them in the front window of his studio. The public voted for ``pinup girl of the week.''
O'Neal sold the Norfolk studio to an aspiring portrait photographer he'd trained and moved his business to Portsmouth. From two studios in Portsmouth, he moved to Newport News. From there, to Suffolk, and then to Elizabeth City.
``He would develop a studio and sell it to a young photographer,'' Aufenger said. ``Then he would continue to maintain a relationship with him, continue to teach and encourage.''
Over the years, O'Neal took portraits of countless brides, thousands of graduates, scores of politicians and business people, ``maybe a million'' children and babies. He had a knack for lighting, for posing, for finding the inner person, his friends and former associates said.
``He has always been an artist in the darkroom,'' said Esther Bunch, who worked with O'Neal in his Portsmouth studio and flew in from Atlanta for the party. ``Between re-touching and printing, he turned out beautiful work . .
O'Neal was 12 or 13 when he got his first camera, a simple box camera he won for selling the ``Grit,'' a popular youth magazine of the early 1900s.
``I took pictures when I could afford a roll of film,'' he recalled. ``When I needed more chemicals, I'd hitchhike a ride to Norfolk on the fish truck. If I was lucky, I got to ride in the cab. If I wasn't, I rode in the back - with the fish.''
At first, there was no water or electricity in the house where he grew up in Currituck, N.C. When a hand pump eventually was installed in the kitchen sink, O'Neal washed the prints in a bowl and exposed them to sunlight.
O'Neal left Currituck after graduating from high school. With little money and hopes of attending the New York Institute of Photography, he moved to New York. He looked the school over but was unimpressed. He began photographing young Broadway hopefuls who stayed at the Rehearsal Club on 53rd Street, then landed a job in a commercial studio doing work for Montgomery Ward catalogs.
When a family member died, O'Neal returned home. He started working at a Portsmouth portrait studio and met the woman who became his wife, Judith, who died two years ago. The two of them opened the Brook Avenue studio.
When O'Neal sold out in Norfolk, he started a migration from one Hampton Roads city to another, leaving behind a studio and a legacy each time.
Not one to be happy idle, O'Neal eventually took to painting the subjects he photographed.
The barn, his latest studio renovation project, ``is within 10 miles of all three of my children,'' O'Neal said, standing on the back patio of the home near Smithfield, with rolling green lawns next to a golf course.
Growing up with O'Neal meant always being in the eye of the camera, his daughter, Karen Leigh, said Sunday.
``It seems he took pictures almost without us ever knowing it,'' she said. ``The camera was always there.''
O'Neal often has shunned modern ways and the new technology of his field, his former associates said.
``He still likes the old hot lights, the incandescent spots,'' said Bruce Kincaid, who took over O'Neal's Newport News location.
Allyn Brown, who took over the Suffolk studio, says O'Neal taught him everything about photography and more.
``He taught me how to stay out of the darkroom and not to shoot weddings,'' Brown said, laughing. ``And he taught me to enjoy the business and appreciate the people.'' ILLUSTRATION: BETH BERGMAN
The Virginian-Pilot
Carlton O'Neal is renovating his barn into yet another studio, his
seventh since he started in the photo business in 1945. About 40
guests gathered at his Isle of Wight home Sunday to celebrate his
50th year in the business.
This early, black-and-white photograph by Carlton O'Neal is of his
wife, Judith, who died two years ago. They met after he started
working at a Portsmouth portrait studio, and they opened a studio in
Norfolk.
KEYWORDS: PROFILE by CNB