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On April 06, 2020 I made a blog entry and wrote: “Little could we have known when the first shovel went into the ground that a pandemic was looming on the horizon. Yet, here we sit since March sequestered in a hold-and-wait pattern. As a result of the hiatus it becomes most unlikely the Dartmouth Heritage Museum’s Program Support Building will open on June 6, as previously scheduled.” The Rooms at Evergreen, 27 May 2021 It is now close to fourteen months since the pen made those scribbles on foolscap. What was scheduled to be a grand opening on the...

  Introducing my new assistant, Mike. In some ways he is great: He can hold a pose for as long as I ask, and he doesn't talk back. On the downside he is a bit thick: He can't make coffee worth a damn, and, he refuses to do silver maintenance. However, recognize he is still wet behind the ears (just coming from a swim, quite literally -Silver Salts on Albumen) and might be trainable with work. 

William Valentine and the first permanent photo studio in British North America William Valentine, the youngest son to parents Joseph and Ann Valentine, was born in 1798 and baptized on 8 April 1798 in St Nicholas’ Church, Whitehaven, England. He arrived in Halifax, Nova Scotia in 1818 with brushes and paint in hand to begin a career as an artist. William Valentine - self portrait His career struggled until the 1830’s, and by 1836 he was back in England to further develop his skills. Evidence shows he was quite familiar with the Royal Society and was known to have made...

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...