[muir_redwoods]

One of my early jobs was as an offset cameraman. It essentially doesn’t exist anymore. For any work done with offset plates in small job shops, ( and perhaps big ones) the image goes directly from computer to plate.

[cuban leaf]

I was a draftsman in the mid-1970’s. :-)

[Maceman]

One of my early jobs was as an offset cameraman. It essentially doesn’t exist anymore. For any work done with offset plates in small job shops, ( and perhaps big ones) the image goes directly from computer to plate.

I graduated college in the early '70s with skill in electronic typesetting which I acquired during my tenure as editor-in-chief of my college newspaper. When that technology came out, it spelled the end of the old lead linotype which we used to get from a local printshop who was very sad to lose the business after many years.

I supported myself with typesetting skills for the next several years as I furthered my education after graduation. When the next generation of computer typesetting equipment came out, I made it a point to not learn to use it, fearing that if I did I would spend my life as a typesetter.

Now of course, typesetting is a distant memory. Here is the good ole IBM Magnetic Tape Selectric Composer system (input and output units), which financed my post graduate education:

[Tupelo]

Cameraman, Stripper, Platemaker, Pressman. All good paying high skilled trade jobs that are damn near obsolete.
I was a heatset offset web pressman back in 60s & 70s when that that trade was expanding daily. Damn, but it was fun to be in demand and compensated accordingly. By the mid 90s, all were starting to die out or worse downgraded to semiskilled labor.