BUSY PHOTOGRAPHERS

Taranaki Daily News, 18 July 1933, Page 11

BUSY PHOTOGRAPHERS

“TAKING” COURT BEAUTIES. LONDON’S ALL-NIGHT RUSH. In the early hours of a Saturday morning a few weeks ago hundreds of debutantes in London drove 'away for the “unofficial court.” They had been dancing and taking refreshments while waiting for the second time that day—wading to have their photographs taken in the studios of Bond Street, Baker Street and Kensington. . This is the busiest tune of the year

for West End photographers. They hold impromptu courts of their own, attended by hundreds of debutantes and women who have made their curtsey to the King and Queen. To secure a memento of the great occasion they descend in then’ hundreds on the studios, white gowns and feathers complete. “We keep open all night for the court rush,” a Bond Street portrait-taker told an interviewer. “I had 126 sitters here on Thursday and 183 on Friday. Yesterday the rush was as big as ever. “We change our whole mode of work for these days. We start at about 10 in the morning and have sitter after sitter until the evening, when all the debutantes are at the Palace. Then, from 10 o’clock until two or three, it is one long rush. Last night I had 50 people waiting at one time in my reception room here, and a line of cars outside; it looked as though I were holding a court myself. “We make arrangements for

clients’ comfort, of course. There is a buffet with refreshments and radio and gramophone music. Lots of the girls who .bring escorts to help them wile away the second wait of the day, dance most of the time. In fact, it is all very jolly. After a restful week-end we shall start again on Tuesday with the Second Court. I have already scores of bookings.” Thousands of pounds are spent on photographs every year by women presented at' Court. The average order amounts to £4 4s for each sitter,, and one photographer alone handles seven or eight hundred sitters at each Court. Some West End experts take , as much as £5OOO at this time of the year.