Camera Lens Polishers Couldn’t Lose Focus
With his passion for photography, this is a job that would certainly have interested Walter Nurnberg in particular. This man worked as a camera lens polisher at Kershaw and Sons in Leeds. This company made all sorts of lenses for various kinds of optical products including cameras, cinema projectors, binoculars, and other forms of photographic equipment.
A worker sets lenses for polishing, Kershaw and Sons, Leeds, 1953. A batch of camera lenses are set ready for polishing on the lathe at the right of the photograph. (Photo by Walter Nurnberg/SSPL/Getty Images)
The worker would have to carefully polish individual lenses before they would be assembled into their final products. This was a job that required constant focus and careful attention to detail, as the tiniest smudge or mark on a camera lens could completely ruin the end product, and the job was very repetitive, as we see the worker with a huge table filled with lenses that need polishing.