Dennis Bull

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Dennis Bull (left) with his father, Hugh Bull. Image sourced from Kathleen Whelan's 'Photography of the Age.'
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Dennis Bull's picture of Alex Jesaulenko. Image sourced from Kathleen Whelan's 'Photography of the Age.' (Click on image to enlarge.)

Dennis Bull is the son of Hugh Bull, the first photographer to work full time for the Age. Prior to joining the newspaper, he worked as a photographer for the Commonwealth Department of Information, shooting movies and stills.

Dennis did not have a lot to do with his father, as a colleague. He does remember, however, when he was serving in the Australian Army in New Guinea directly after the Second World War, being told by his commanding offer to come with him. ‘We travelled through the jungle for a long time,’ says Bull, ‘to meet my father, who was photographing for the Age.’

Bull describes the work routine of a press photographer when he first started out:
”Back then, we could only do a single job in a day. The cameras were old, huge and controlled by hand. The Age’s first camera was a large Auto Graflex with 5 x 4 inch individual glass plates and then large cut film in double dark slides or magazines. There was nothing automatic about it. Especially with sport you needed to hold a huge lens, follow the play continually and pull focus with your left hand as you were trying to find the best and most important picture. You never knew what you had until you developed the negatives in the darkroom. It amazes me what they can do today with digital equipment.”

Dennis Bull was on duty at the MCG on Grand Final day in 1970, when one of the most iconic Australian sports photographs, a shot of Carlton’s Alex Jesaulenko taking a towering mark over Collingwood’s Graeme Jenkin, was taken. According to both Clive Mackinnon (working for the Sun), and Bruce Howard (the Herald), who were both sitting in their usual spots alongside Bull in the MCG Members Stand, Bull almost ensured that none of them got the shot. He had pulled out a bag of Minties and offered them to his colleagues. McKinnon recalls that he ‘looked up and yelled out, ‘Look out, the ball’s coming back!’ With no rapid-fire shutters in those days, the photographers clicked just one frame each. Says McKinnon, ‘Can you believe it? If I hadn’t yelled out I’d have had the picture all on my own!’ As it was, they all captured an amazing picture, with Jesaulenko’s hands and the ball in different positions, according to when the shutter closed.

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