

Where he took joy was in photographing the systems, as well as use cases. "I took thousands of those, I never really enjoyed that," he said. He also had to do what he called 'grip-and-grins,' the more traditional photographs of white men in white shirts and dark suits shaking hands. They were quite surprised to see the kind of photographs I was able to produce, they really ate those up and started publishing it in newspapers and magazines, and in some of the trade magazines." "I photographed all the manufacturing procedures, something the company never had done before. "I would create my own assignments," he said. Given what could be seen as a rather lifeless and corporate remit, he managed to inject art and beauty into his job. “It's more powerful than those mainframes."ĭunbar's photography is powerful in its own way, too. Now, of course, I'm amazed that people are walking around with a computer in their pockets,” he said. "I was there when they had the huge mainframe computers in 1957, and I saw all the changes in computers over the coming years.
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Subscribe for free today to support our journalism Art from mainframesĭunbar would go on to work with IBM out of Canada for an incredible 32 years, from 1957 to 1989, amassing an enormous portfolio that documents a little-studied computing revolution. This feature appeared on the cover of Issue 44 of the DCD Magazine. "I was pretty lucky to get that job and be the first photographer there." "They were buying all of their photography from commercial studios - mainly employee pictures because they had an extensive employee magazine, a country club, a golf course, a baseball diamond, lawn bowling, and tennis courts," he explained. "I feel so lucky, because IBM was looking for a photographer, and I was hired as their first," he told DCD. In 1957, George Dunbar made one of the best decisions of his life.
