Part of The Undocumented Worker mural by the late Michael Schnorr. Earlier this year Chicano Park was entered into the National Register of Historic Places

Things were pretty busy yesterday. In addition to Nick, Dave, Joe, Omar and myself, we also had three High Tech High students Zimri, Giuliano and friend, Catherine, and a new comer named Don. We had three large format cameras (one was a stereo camera) and two dark boxes running pretty much non stop all day. Unfortunately most of the day was spent trouble shooting some chemical fogging, and with so many new people joining us I opted to spend the majority of my time assisting those in need.

A look inside one of the portable darkboxes used to prepare/develop plates in the field.

We first met Don last month when he happened to come across Nick and Dave’s photo booth in Old Town. He was back on Saturday, ready to get his hands dirty. In addition, he also introduced us to his friend Ken and Ken’s wife Gail. Ken is a retired Gunnery Sergeant and has had a life long passion for all things related to the Civil War. We weren’t expecting him, but yesterday Ken and his wife showed up and brought along some period authentic outfits. Ken had two different spectacular civil war era USMC uniforms and my faovrite, a General Ulysses S. Grant uniform. I’m certainly no expert, but you could tell Ken had put countless hours into perfecting his uniforms and everything just looked authentic. My first attempt was with Ken in his civil war era Marine band uniform. I had some severe chemical fogging but I tried again once Ken had changed into his General Grant uniform and this time I was successful.

5 second exposure with some light bounced in using a white reflector (thanks Joe!).

Old Town San Diego, 2013.

I met up with Dave in Old Town San Diego last weekend. I’ve been having some dark slide woes with my 5×7 camera so I left the whole thing at home but still made my way over to Old Town to get some wet plate practice. Leaving my camera at home turned out to be a good thing because Nick was home sick and Dave needed help in the “dark room”. This is a half plate I took of a Civil War reenactor named George. It’s taken months of practice but I’m starting to feel comfortable with my pouring technique.

In addition to the occasional weekend drives out to Mt. Laguna, the Anza Borrego Desert and surrounding areas, I also went to Joshua Tree, The Salton Sea, and even made the drive out to Tennessee and back in the summer. In the fall I had a busy schedule again and didn’t pick up my camera as much as I would have liked, but I still managed to sneak into the dark room from time to time.

If you’ve looked around my site recently many of the photos may be familiar, but these are some of my favorite shots of the year.

(click photos to enlarge in a new window)

(Thanks to Dave Smith)

Amarilo, Texas, 2012 (click to enlarge)

This is Charles Halstead aka Crazy Charles from West Virginia. I was hanging out in Old Town San Diego after doing some tintypes and got into a conversation with him. It quickly turned into a one sided lecture on political conspiracies, Hitler, Obama, hats and of course his love of West Virginia.