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Closing the Circle

Dale Wilson Canada Canadian collodion dale wilson Dartmouth Heritage Museum Evergreen House Halifax Regional Municipality historical photo processes Program Support Building The Rooms at Evergreen tintype wetplate

Some wise soul once said something along the lines of satisfaction comes to those who wait. Regardless of such lore, this past Friday was a most satisfying and enjoyable culmination of more than five years in the making.

Brutus, aka Century 7 studio camera, made his appearance at Dartmouth Heritage Museum in October 2016. Following some refurbishment, including new bellows, he stood as Lord of the Manor representing little more than a piece of furniture for a variety of reasons.

Brutus needed a home so people could start making images with him.

 

Figure 1: October 2016 and Brutus is wheeled into Evergreen House at the Dartmouth Heritage Museum

This led to a fundraising drive to construct a natural light studio. With sufficient cash in hand, considerable contributions of in kind excavation work (thank you to Rick Lagina, and crew of the TV show “The Curse of Oak Island”) and the most patient volunteers one could hope to work with, The Rooms at Evergreen opened its doors to allow Brutus to make an appearance on October 9, 2020.

 

Figure 2: The Rooms at Evergreen, Sept 2020 and waiting patiently for the COVID pandemic to be history so programming can begin.

 

With a little persuading we were able to cajole the curator of the museum, Terry Eyland, to be the sacrificial lamb and the first to have his portrait made by Brutus in decades.

 Figure 3: Whereas Brutus is an 8x10 inch camera, the portrait size was 5x7 inch; made in the wet plate collodion process of pure metallic silver on aluminum substrate (better known, if incorrectly called tintype).  



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