<Begin Segment 14>

BH: So after graduation, then what?

DH: Graduation, I, they wanted me to continue my grad work, graduate work. I took a lot of classes. I have something like thirty-six hours of graduate work. They wanted me to be a teacher, and I said no way, I can't be a teacher. [Laughs] So I was good at drawing and stuff, so they wanted me to go into advertising. So they sent me to Spokane after I graduated. They found me a job there, so I went there and I dragged my friend with me, and we both got interviewed. What do you know? He got picked instead of me. [Laughs] Because, I think it was because of the race-wise. They wanted a nice good-looking hakujin blond boy to take over. So from there I went to Seattle and I had a couple of jobs at different agency and an offer at Boeing art department. But I had to wait something like, almost a month go to back. I didn't have enough money to stay there, so I came to Portland because my brother had a garage and I could stay with them, so I stayed with them and I found odd jobs freelancing, and eventually I got hired by Meier & Frank, freelancing, though. I freelanced with them for several years, and then when May come, they came and they said they don't take freelancers anymore, they want people on staff. So I got on staff, and I worked from 1954 'til I retired. But the last twenty years, I used my own camera. Because we went in, instead of drawing, we'd gone into photographing. So I used my camera, made, took some product shots, and I said, "This is what I can do." So they said they really liked what I did. So they gave me a bigger space, and I said, "I can't work with my own camera, I need a bigger format." So they gave me the opportunity to go find a new camera, so I bought three new cameras, big format. And I said, "We need a bigger place where I can work." So they eventually built this studio, one studio which was curved floors and everything, I had 'em specially built for my, the way I wanted it. And I bought all the lighting, and I bought everything, and I started working. And in a couple years, they wanted to do more in house. So I asked him, well, we had to take over this display department and build a studio. So I had 'em build five studios. One for myself, and another product one, and two fashion shoot. So I bought all the equipment, Hasselblad, bought ten Hasselblad, all the other type of camera. In fact, I had one lens that was about four thousand dollars at that time. I said I wanted a zoom lens, this Hasselblad zoom lens. They got it. So I had to get a lot of promotional work, lot of promotional work at zoo and stuff like that. I started doing fashion and jewelrys and that kind of thing, and it was too much. I had these models, I couldn't work with models. [Laughs] So I said, "I'll do all that product merchandise, and we'll hire a fashion studio. So we hired four fashion photographers, ended up with two at the end. Did everything in house, color and everything. We just did the work, just complete work, and sent to Oregonian and they'd just print it straight off of our work.

Then came the time to retire, and I knew that computer camera was coming in. I didn't want to go into that, so I retired. [Laugh] After that they just closed the studio because it went all in house, out of house, photography-wise. It was all photographs after that, no more artwork.

BH: You had quite a career there.

DH: Yeah, we had, I had... I didn't get along very good, but I did a lot of drawings.

BH: Now which brother was it that had the garage? Was that a mechanics garage?

DH: Yeah, he was my older brother. Before the war, he went to OIT, which was a technical school. He finished there and got his degree, and then the war came, and then he, that's how he got on the cannon company somehow, because of his background. And when he came back, he worked for a bus, he was a bus driver and all kinds of odd things, and worked for mechanics. Then he had an opportunity to buy this place on Burnside and started his shop. He was there until he had a heart attack.

BH: What was the name of the shop?

DH: Motor Clinic. And Frank Yasui was working with my brother for several years before he quit and went to Esco.

<End Segment 14> - Copyright © 2014 Oregon Nikkei Endowment and Densho. All Rights Reserved.