Moose Camp

Adam Messmer, only hunt with this man if you want to be successful or need a tracker in heavy cover.

I have become rather addicted to large format photography and especially using the mighty Graflex Speed Graphic 4"x5" press camera. It is a camera that demands patience from beginning to end and rewards users with a unique bevy of qualities and possibilities. It's main attribute is the focal plane shutter that allows users to put about any lens on it that you wish. Many great lenses from the 1800's and early 1900's lack internal shutters so this allows users to draw from almost any lens they can afford and make a lens board for.
My last project "Titans of Industry" utilized the Kodak Aero Ektar 7" f2.5 that is a challenge to use, but well worth the challenge. My next project is to embark on learning how to shoot tintype or ferrotype images using the Speed Graphic. Tintype or Ferrotype are images that use painted metal coated with a special emulsion that makes them light sensitive much like a modern negative. This was the industry standard during the late 1800's and most images were created on either tin or glass negatives. Why step backwards, when technology is so rapidly going forward? I love hands on projects and photography is more to me that just clicking a shutter and paying someone to edit it and email a finished product.
But before I learn tintype, I need to learn the lenses of the era and had an opportunity to do just that during our recent fall outing to Chena, Alaska during moose season. I purchased an ancient Petzval style brass lens from the east coast that arrived just in time for moose season. So in addition to the standard moose camp equipment, I packed a pelican case full of large format equipment older than my father.

Bill Messmer inspecting the moose hanging in our outdoor meat locker.

Lucas (middle), Adam (left), Bill (Right) 2 second exposure by camp fire.

My moose camp partners were willing to pose for a few frames (after we filled two tags in three days). I know people may look at the image and think that they could do that with a lens baby, or just photoshop and it may be somewhat true, but I'll stick with a photo process that is authentic as my partners in moose camp.

Near Denali National Park