Rondal Partridge

Rondal Partridge (September 4, 1917 – June 19, 2015) was an American photographer. After working as an assistant to well-known photographers Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams in his youth, he went on to a long career as a photographer and filmmaker.

Partridge was born in San Francisco in 1917. He had a twin brother named Padraic. His parents were etcher Roi George Partridge and photographer Imogen Cunningham. He grew up in a household where he was constantly exposed to the influence of several great California artists of the early 20th century. For example, at the age of four, he spent time staying at the home of photographer Dorothea Lange and her husband, painter Maynard Dixon. Lange was embarrassed that Dixon taught Partridge an "obscene verse", and then encouraged him to recite it in front of guests. Partridge became so close to Lange that their relationship was often compared to a son's relationship with his mother.

Partridge began assisting his mother in her darkroom when he was five years old. At the age of 16, he became photographic assistant to Dorothea Lange, when she got a job taking pictures documenting rural poverty for the Resettlement Administration, a New Deal agency of the U.S. government. Lange paid Partridge one dollar a day plus expenses to be her driver and darkroom assistant, and he often spent the night outdoors in a sleeping bag while she slept in a bed in a motel. Lange was paid four dollars a day.

From 1937 to 1939, he worked as an assistant to Ansel Adams in Yosemite National Park. He operated Adams' new automated darkroom in Yosemite Village, which produced photographic prints of Adams' work for sale to tourists.

In July, 1937, Edward Weston, who had received a one-year Guggenheim Fellowship to photograph the American West, arrived in Yosemite. Adams had organized an excursion to the High Sierra, hiring three mules at Red's Meadow to take the party to the Minarets and Devils Postpile National Monument. Partridge accompanied and assisted the party. Other members of the group included Charis Wilson (later Weston's wife), climber David Brower (later executive director of the Sierra Club) and another climber, Morgan Harris. After a week of taking photos and battling mosquitoes, the group returned to Yosemite Valley late at night on July 27. As they were eating a dinner of roast chicken, they learned that Adams' new darkroom in an adjacent building was on fire. Partridge and others battled the flames until the fire was extinguished. Although thousands of negatives were lost, many masterpieces were saved. The fire had been caused by negligence by a photo technician sent by the Zeiss camera company.

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