Melainotype, Ferrotype or Tintype?

Actually all three names describe the same process. I picked up this tintype at the flea market last summer. The tintype is a wet plate photographic process, in which a piece black enameled or varnished tin (in some cases iron) is coated in a liquid collodion to make an exposure. The image is technically a negative but because of the dark background it appears to be a positive. This technique for image making was first described in France in 1853 and patented in the United States in 1856, however with the development of the amateure camera it began fading in popularity by the end of the 19th century.

 

Further information on the tintype can be found on this web page.

Endless Landscape

Just after Thanksgiving when I returned to Boston I was passing time in Coolidge Corner at Eureka . It's a tiny little shop fantastically packed full of all kinds of puzzles and board games. I had been in there before under similar circumstances of just waiting for another store to open. So I went in thinking I was just going to tinker around when I spotted this tiny box on a table in the center of the store. 

Obviously my attention was grabbed by the the title! What a treasure I can now create an endless number of landscapes in my house, at my desk or on my coffee table seeing all kinds of wonderful history in the land and people with out ever going out side! I purchased them with out much thought. 

When I got it back to my apartment and started to play around with the tiny cards, shuffling them about, I wanted to know more about them. So I turned to the trusty google and Wikipedia. As it turns out these little cards have quite the history. The Endless Landscape is also known as a polyorama or myriorama which means multi view, and was a popular 18th and 19th century storytelling game. They are made of a series of paintings that are pieces of a panorama and can be rearranged over and over again because the edge of each card has a horizon and a landscape element that will match up with any other card in the set. 

According to Wikipedia the creation of the endless landscape games was "... all part of a wider interest in viewing landscape as panorama, and in new ways presenting 'spectacular' scenes."

Wikipedia also describes the early card sets as being made up of "people, buildings and other compatible backgrounds" that could be laid out in many different arrangements "allowing a child to create a variety of imaginary landscapes." Some early ones that the cite specifically depicted English and Italian landscapes. 

Here is one example of the many landscapes I created over the last few weeks. 

Polaroid for Shelby

                                                      

 

My Friend Shelby recently made a lovely post on her blog  about Food & Books Restaurant that made reference to me and my Polaroidness. So I thought I would post it. I've been working on a Polaroid series since last spring and hopefully will be posting some more of that work as I get back into the blogging. 

Food & Books dinning room © Amanda Kilton 2008 

Bringing Back the Blog.

I've been on a mission to have an experience that was worthy of bringing back the blog. It's been so long since the last post that I thought it really needed to be something good. 

So here it goes! 

On my latest visit home I took the train into New London and then took a cab to meet my father at his work. He wasn't quite ready so I loaded my things into his pick up truck and waited around for a bit. Once he was all set we were heading to town to pick up the turkey and other tid bits for Thanksgiving. He came out of the shop, hopped into the truck and turned the key. Nothing happened not even a click. He did this a few more times and still nothing. He popped the hood and got out of the truck stared in for a second and then disappeared behind the truck only to return with a wrench. I thought this was to turn something. No. He slid under the truck and it sounded like he was just hitting something. When he re appeared from under the truck he tossed the wrench into the back and climbed back in and turned the key. Nothing. At this point he could have gotten mad but really what was the point so we were just laughing. 

He opened up the door and got out of the truck placed one of his hands against the back side of the frame and the other still on the steering wheel and pushed the truck backwards. Then pushed it forward a tiny bit, jumped in and turned the key. He was trying to pick up just enough speed that it would pop start. On the first try nothing. So he did it again, at this point it became clear that it was going to take the two of us. 

So I jumped out and positioned my self the same way he was and we pushed the car back and changed the direction we were pointed so we were oriented over a tiny hill thinking if we could pick up a bit more speed that we would get it going. One last time we pushed it back and then forward, first I jumped in and then my Dad, and we were on our way. 

Halloween

Chuck and Bill Halloween 1951

Hay!

Haystacks at Giverny Claude Monet (pencil on paper)

Driving around any country landscape, big fields everywhere are dotted with a large variety of haystacks. Hay is grown for many reasons, it’s most prominent uses is as animal feed, particularly for grazing. According to the site Mother Earth News, you can expect a cow to eat about 35 pounds of hay a day during cold weather and a horse will eat 44 while sheep and goats will get by on a little over five. The intricate history of hay can be found on Wikipedia, but basically early on in farming's history it was noticed that in the spring fields produced more hay then could be consumed by the animals, so by cutting it, drying and storing it for the winter saved the domesticated animals from digging though the snow to feed and provided them better nutrition.
Haystacks, Evany Gruwald Bela

This all was to be done by hand cutting the hay by scythe and then gathered up into large bundles called sheafs with the development of technologies, this was latter done by horse drawn implements and then latter with machinery such as the tractor and the baler. Large rectangle bails or more commonly huge rolls of hay we see drying in the fields; they are markers of the places we inhabit and part of our landscape. Artist for years have been examining them and their function in our space. Harvest in Provence, Vincent van Gogh

This brings to mind the a quote from John Huddleston, “A photograph that appears almost ordinary and yet evokes a sense of truth and beauty is all the more meaningful. The mundane makes up most of ones life and it is to everyday life that we need to feel more connected.” Perhaps that is why artists such as Monet, (who painted and sketched many versions of the same stacks though out his career), and countless others including Van Gogh and Bela felt compelled to produce work featuring the haystack. This past weekend when I was home photographing I was visiting a local farm down the street from my grandmothers house the owner showed me several stacks of hay that her husband and children had done using traditional methods.

East Street, Hebron CT © Amanda Kilton 2007

EJR, Ruth and Chuck's Visit

In looking though these hundreds of slides over the last few weeks I come to a dead end, I’m at loss for what to do. I’ve become very attached to these characters and just as abruptly as the series of images begins it ends, with no real resolution. At some point ‘possible family trees’ and timelines of events just fizzle out. I’m working on doing some research to see what I can come up with, for now however I will continue to do my best to present these images in as much truth as I can imagine.
This image was taken in 1946, Chuck was just 2 and EJR and Ruth had been married for just over four years, they were beginning to think of moving east, EJR wanted to pursue getting his doctorate. Here they are just getting ready to depart Ruth’s sisters house, after visiting for a few days, her son just had his fourth birthday and based the photos it seems to have been quite a rambunctious weekend.