Gasser's History

Adolph Gasser graduated high school just before the Great Depression started and managed to land a job as a repairman with a camera shop. It was there that he learned how to customize photo equipment.

Mr. Gasser quickly gained a reputation as a skilled technician. In 1936, he opened General Camera Repair, his first business, where he met Ansel Adams and Imogen Cunningham. Mr. Gasser and Adams grew very close over the years and in 1965, Adams was best man at his wedding, which took place at Adams' home in Carmel.

Mr. Gasser enlisted in the Army Air Corps
in 1943, serving with the Photo Division
of the 509th Composite Group from Wendover, Utah.

While stationed on Tinian Island in the Pacific Ocean, Mr. Gasser loaded and maintained aerial cameras on B-29 bombers. The cameras would not work in the cold temperatures that exist in high altitudes. Mr. Gasser solved that technical problem, and the cameras successfully captured images of bombs dropping on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Mr. Gasser also gave a K20 Aerial camera to the tail gunner to take photographs of the explosions after the plane was flying back to the island.

After the war, Mr. Gasser still owned General Camera Repair and became a technical consultant for Nikon Corp. in Japan, just as its cameras were gaining acceptance. He helped the company solve a number of problems and eventually held patents for "sync systems" that enabled a camera's flash and shutter to operate simultaneously.

Throughout his career, Mr. Gasser used his camera expertise to create specialized equipment. He designed an enlarger, used to make prints from film or negatives, for Adams. And in 1948, he engineered and built a camera known as the "Big Eye" for the San Francisco News, which the paper used for taking photographs at sporting events.

In 1950, Mr. Gasser opened the Hobby Center, a retail shop that sold model trains and airplanes as well as camera and art supplies. That business later became Adolph Gasser Photography, and is located at 181 Second Sreet in downtown San Francisco.