An old bellows portrait camera with a rosewood body and leather bellows sets atop its sliding frame and adjustable table. There are some old sepia and black and white portraits on the table. The stairwell of the museum building forms a solid corner brace for the set up. The first part of Hiawatha's Photographing by Lewis Carroll From his shoulder Hiawatha Took the camera of rosewood, Made of sliding, folding rosewood; Neatly put it all together. In its case it lay compactly, Folded into nearly nothing; But he opened out the hinges, Pushed and pulled the joints and hinges, Till it looked all squares and oblongs, Like a complicated figure In the Second Book of Euclid. This he perched upon a tripod - Crouched beneath its dusky cover - Stretched his hand, enforcing silence - Said “Be motionless, I beg you!” Mystic, awful was the process.
This camera, a Kodak 9A Century Studio Camera, was manufactured in the 1920s. Displayed here in the Pioneer Village Museum in Cedaredge, Colorado, it forcibly reminded me of Lewis Carroll's spoof of Walt Whitman's poem, Hiawatha
#Photography #CedaredgeColorado #PioneerVillageMuseum #VintageCameras
