Tintype Outing: Owls Head Transportation Museum

Several weeks ago an old high school friend commented on a tintype images I posted to Facebook, said he would like to buy one. Naturally I said “sure! What do you have in mind?”

“An airplane. I want a tintype of an airplane.”

Great. I mean, photographing at airports isn’t the hardest thing to do these days. At least he didn’t say “police headquarters”, “a nuclear reactor”, or “the President’s pet dog”.

I got to thinking about some local options and eventually contacted a couple of people at the Owls Head Transportation Museum just a bit south of Rockland. I mentioned that I would like to photograph some airplanes, and I think before I could finish saying that the guy I was talking to went off on an enthusiastic tangent of all the possibilities to collaborate with them.

I started by going to a recent car show (at which they also brought out some of their airplanes, whew!) and spent most of the day making tintypes. I got to the museum grounds at 7:30am, and was cleaned up and done there around 3:30pm. By the time I had washed the tins and my gear it was 5pm – in all that time I had managed to make 19 tintypes, and I was absolutely wiped out. It was a Good Day.  :-)

Since it was my first time at this location I didn’t ask for any special placement of the airplanes or vehicles, so I didn’t always get the angle I’d most want – and many of these are composed the way they are because I used the airplane to hide signs and garbage cans and such behind them.