Look at what a very fine piece of engineering came in the door of riverrun. A large format camera! The back folds down and locks into place to extend the tracks for the bellows to fully open. The shutter is crafted with such masterly elegance that really, it’s no wonder after all that the human race has been able to construct machines that travel to the moon and beyond. Far beyond. In back of the shutter is a collapsible circle to vary the amount of light let in. The plane of the shutter, as well as the plane of the plate in back, can be tilted up to about 12 degrees.
Anyone would like to putter around with this camera. I love being able to. I not taking pictures with it though. Don’t know how. Yet. I might learn how to operate this camera some day, just like I might learn how to operate a camera at the other end of the time spectrum – the one that is allegedly built into my cell phone.
Photography is in riverrun’s neighborhood. The house where John William Draper and his son, Henry Draper, lived is in the next block of Washington Avenue, just up the hill. Henry Draper built an observatory and photographed the sky.
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George Eastman House - Technology Timeline
Field Cameras of the United States: 1879 - 1930
other Eastman cameras
Henry Draper first photographer of the moon
Draper the scientist
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