


Three more in my DC at night series. These were all shot with the Canham 5×7 wood field, and if memory serves, all were taken with the Kodak 12″ Commercial Ektar lens.
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I discovered Melissa’s wet plate collodion work through a link someone posted on APUG, and I felt it was worth sharing. She has done a beautiful seet of wet plate portraits of the Mohawk Ironworkers who for the last century have been responsible for building the skyscrapers of New York City. The inspiration was the 9/11 10th anniversary last year, and the construction of Freedom Tower on the site of the old World Trade Center. I just felt her work was worth sharing. Please browse her website linked below to see more of her work and to find out more about her.

Here’s another in my DC at Night photos – the intersection of Wisconsin Avenue and Water Street, under the Whitehurst Freeway in Georgetown. I was down there shooting some other scenes, trying to finish off my 5×7 color negative film stock (I bought a 50 sheet box when it was only $150 a box…now, over $400!!!!). This was taken with my 12″ Kodak Commercial Ektar lens. A roughly 30 second exposure. I was a bit nervous during the shoot as I was out in the rain, with a carbon-fiber tripod, and sheltering under a gigantic steel overpass. I think the lightning was a few miles away though, and nothing happened. I was a little bummed that none of the lightning recorded in the sky as anything other than general fog, but hey… the headlamps and tail lights of the cars recorded very nicely, don’t you think?




Here are some images I took over Labor Day weekend at Glen Echo Park of the original Dentzel carousel. The Carousel is from the first decade of the 20th century, and is original to the park. It has been restored and is fully operational as you can see. One of the horses on the carousel is actually 100% original paint and as such it is roped off so you can’t ride it. The pipe organ/calliope is also fully functional and it has nearly an hours worth of music before it repeats.

Here is a vintage silver gelatin print of a sailor’s ritual head shaving on his first crossing of the equator. Note the “mermaid” in long blond wig administering the shaving, and the asian sailor restraining the recipient of the haircut. This must have been a merchant ship, possibly in the Pacific, pre- WW II. In any case, a fascinating snippet of nautical culture as seen from an insider’s perspective.


More fun with the Rolleiflex. All of this series was shot with Kodak Portra 160 NC, which is a fantastic film for night photography because of the way it handles color in mixed lighting conditions. In my opinion, it’s probably the best color film for this kind of shooting, ever. Others may disagree.





Here’s another cabinet card, this time from Kearney, Nebraska (which I’ve actually been to before, on my cross-country drive from DC to San Francisco). These boys are obviously from a family which had assimilated to Anglo culture. It would be interesting to try and illustrate the divergence between assimilation and resistance through photographs like this. Too bad there’s not a date on the card to help with the process.





The last image was taken at the Farmers’ Market and NOT at Whole Foods, but it’s food themed, and I wanted to include it but had to re-scan it from last time, so here is the revised scan.