Cliff Hall (photographer) facts for kids

Clifford Augustus Hall (born August 11, 1925 – died January 5, 2020) was a photographer and designer from Los Angeles, California. He took many pictures of parties and events in fancy neighborhoods. He also photographed the important events of the 1992 Los Angeles riots. Cliff Hall also designed a special car. He hoped this car would be cheap to buy and easy to drive in the city. He also wanted it to create good jobs for Black families in Los Angeles.

Early Life and Building Things

Cliff Hall was born in Los Angeles on August 11, 1925. His family had moved to the Los Angeles area in 1903.

When he was a kid, he loved to build things. He built soapbox racers with his friend, Wallace Arima.

From 1930 to 1946, Cliff lived with his grandmother. He joined the United States Navy in 1943 and served until 1946. In the Navy, he learned about electronics.

Building things ran in his family. His grandfather was a watchmaker. His great-uncles on his mother's side even built their own cars and airplanes! Later, Cliff built a small electric car for his young son. This project helped him learn how to work with a material called fiberglass.

Photography and Design Work

After leaving the Navy, Cliff Hall went to the Fred R. Archer School of Photography. His friend Wallace Arima told him about the school.

Early in his career, he took photos of graduations and "sweet sixteen" parties. These events were for people living in famous areas like Hollywood and Bel-Air. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Cliff became a very popular photographer for big parties in Los Angeles's richest neighborhoods. This was interesting because, at the time, he might not have been allowed to buy a home in some of those same neighborhoods.

Cliff Hall worked at the Los Angeles Sentinel newspaper. This was one of the oldest and most important African-American newspapers in the Western United States. He was the chief photographer there for 27 years. Jessie Mae Brown Beavers, an editor at the Sentinel, asked Cliff to photograph the yearly "Los Angeles Best Dressed" event. This became one of the newspaper's most popular features. Cliff Hall's photos of the 1992 Los Angeles riots are now a very important part of history.

Cliff also helped other young photographers learn the ropes. In 1958, he started a studio called Halmont Graphics with Lamonte McLemore. Lamonte McLemore later became a member of the music group The 5th Dimension. He was also the first Black photographer hired by Harper's Bazaar magazine. He had a long career taking photos for Ebony magazine. Cliff Hall also taught Howard Bingham photography at the Sentinel. Howard Bingham later worked for Life magazine. He took photos for a story about the Black Panther Party. He also photographed the life and career of the famous boxer Muhammad Ali.

Cliff Hall used his mechanical skills in his photography business. He built a special mobile photo lab. This allowed him to take pictures at a party and give the clients finished prints before the event was even over!

The Corwin Getaway Car

Cliff Hall once said, "I was going to be the Martin Luther King Jr. of industry." He meant he wanted to create big changes in business and jobs.

He started working on a sports car, later called the Corwin Getaway, shortly after the Watts Riots in 1965. He finished the first car, called a prototype, in 1969. Cliff Hall planned for the Getaway to be "built by Black hands in a Black community." He wanted it to create jobs and opportunities.

The finished car was shown at the 1970 Los Angeles Auto Show. Many famous people supported the project. However, Cliff Hall could not find enough money to start making the Getaway cars in large numbers. After keeping the car for several years, he eventually gave it to the Petersen Automotive Museum.

Later Years and New Ideas

Cliff Hall became known as an inventor, designer, and artist. People who knew him said he always had new and creative ideas.

Even though he couldn't get enough money to make the Getaway car, Cliff Hall kept designing new vehicles. He worked with another designer, Dennis Huguley. Together, they thought up a narrow, two-person, three-wheeled vehicle called the "Magic Machine." It looked a bit like an airplane and had a special engine that used both gas and electricity.

In his later years, Cliff Hall moved to a retirement community in Highland, California. He passed away in Loma Linda, California on January 5, 2020.

Honors and Recognition

The California African American Museum featured Cliff Hall's work in a special show. The show was called "Light Catchers." It showed the work of African American photographers who had worked in the Los Angeles area from 1940 onwards. The show ran from March 20, 2015, to June 7, 2015.