Journal Entries

I try to do or make interesting things on a regular basis. Here are some words and photos about my exploits.

Lake Valley – Ghost Town

One of my reasons for driving at least 4000 miles to Ohio and back over the holidays (the trip ended up just over 6000 miles in total) was to be able to take my tintype...

Brad and Andrea

I recently drove from Arizona to Minnesota, by way of Ohio. Long story as to why I drove, but the point of this part of the story is that I stopped along the way in...

Custom ground glass covers

I am now making and selling custom ground glass protective covers for large format cameras! I have a few different options to start with, as well as some fun customization possibilities. Basic Design The covers...

Tintype Roadtrip: Southern Utah and Grand Canyon

The latest trip in my quest to photograph The West in tintype, as it might have been done as the region was first photographed in the mid-1800s, took me on a loop through southern Utah...

Bombing Range Camping Trip

Every year around the end of the fall semester, the Arizona State University photography graduate students head out to the desert for a camping weekend. This weekend their fearless leader Mark Klett took us to...

First welding project: bottle drying rack!

I have wanted to learn how to weld for years, decades maybe. Never got around to it. Looked into taking classes at a tech school back in Ohio, but it was several thousand dollars (no...

Ground glass protective cover

Now that my 8×10 camera is getting heavy usage (Kari is out in the field with it as I type) I have been working on either repairing pinholes, making parts so it can be used...

New lens boards for the big cameras

I’ve had my Arca-Swiss 4×5 view camera for several years now, and more recently bought an 8×10 camera from my friend / mentor / boss Brenton Hamilton. It didn’t come with any lens boards, though...

Shiprock, Valley of the Gods, and the Goosenecks

I used my recent trip to Great Sand Dunes National Park as an excuse to further explore the Four Corners region of northwestern New Mexico, northeastern Arizona, and southeast Utah, and make some tintypes along...

Great Sand Dunes Centennial Tintype Weekend

As I wrote about earlier, the National Park Service asked me to be part of their Centennial Celebrations by spending two days at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve giving demonstrations on making tintypes...

Wukoki Pueblo and the Grand Canyon Tintypes

For reasons I go into in another post, I recently made a new darkbox to facilitate making tintypes in the field. That ordeal is a different story, but here are the best results from my...

Portable Darkroom Version 2

Within a few months of learning how to make tintypes in the Haas Lab (thanks, as always, to Kari Wehrs and Brenton Hamilton) I enjoyed some quality father-son time making a darkbox in the woodshop...