Edward F. Perrey, the city's commercial eye

1897 — 1934

Fort Wayne-born, and the papers' photographer before papers had them: Edward F. Perrey was born in Fort Wayne on 28 July 1868, a son of Joseph J. and Adeline Perrey, attended the Cathedral School, and married Mary Diebold in 1896. He learned the trade working for Frank R. Barrows and John A. Shoaff, then opened his own studio at 62 and 64 Calhoun Street — renumbered 734–736 Calhoun in 1902 and known formally as the Perrey Studio. In the year of its opening he explained his craft in an advertisement: the photographer "must understand all the details of light and shade; also that of posing the subject so that the picture will be attractive and at the same time a natural one." Beatty calls him one of the city's most important photographers of the early twentieth century. His specialty was commercial photography — large photographs of buildings, graduation classes, groups of employees, and outdoor and industrial views — and because of his skill he was often contracted by the local newspapers to take photographs of a range of subjects, doing the papers' picture work as an outside studio a generation before the papers kept staff photographers of their own. He specialized in wide scenic views, using a panning camera that he turned with a crank. Griswold wrote in Builders of Greater Fort Wayne (1927) that the Perrey Studios "produce commercial photographs of Fort Wayne-made merchandise, of attractive window displays, of the city's business houses, of important public and private improvements, and of a host of other civic interests which find their way into nationally circulated magazines. … Pictures of Fort Wayne are playing a vital part in national publicity for the city." Perrey died in Fort Wayne on 26 February 1934 and is buried in Catholic Cemetery.

Sources:

1. John D. Beatty, Directory of Fort Wayne Photographers 1843–1930 — entry for Edward F. Perrey, citing Fort Wayne Illustrated (Commercial Publishing Co., 1897), Griswold, Builders of Greater Fort Wayne, pp. 448–449, Griswold, Some Fort Wayne Phizes, p. 230, and Fort Wayne city directories, 1897–1930.