Tag Archives: photography

Isabel Drake’s Remarkable Photos Show the World of 1900

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A hundred years back and more, there lived in Corning a remarkable family – mother, father, and three daughters – that left its mark on history, without doing anything actually historical. On the other hand, they had a whale of a lot of fun.

*The reason we know them particularly is that Isabel Walker Drake (the mother) was a pioneer in the new age of photography that had been made possible by George Eastman, up in Rochester. She used high-quality equipment (as she could afford to do), including a panorama camera with a pivoting lens. She had a clear eye and a steady hand, and she knew when to grab an interesting shot. Her photos will be the subject of a free Steuben County Historical Society presentation by Charles R. Mitchell (Friday Dec. 1, 4 PM in Bath Fire Hall).

*In addition to her artistry, Mrs. Drake mastered the technical side of photography, developing her own negatives and printing her own photos. Whenever she had a question, she just got on the phone and called Mr. Eastman.

*Mrs. Walker’s father had been a member of Congress, her brother-in-law was an owner of Corning Building Company, and her husband James was an owner of First National Bank on Market Street, so she probably had easy entry into George Eastman’s circle.

*The big brick house at 171 Cedar Street, now part of the arts organization of the same name, was their “starter home.” They later built a much bigger and finer place, next to the T. G. Hawkes mansion, up in the Corning Free Academy neighborhood.

*Just so you get the picture, that home (now gone) had its own schoolroom, stage, and pipe organ (which was later donated to Pulteney Presbyterian Church). Musicales and extravaganzas were part of life in the Drake home. The girls were educated at home, tutored by Professor Borstelmann, who operated the Corning Conservatory of Music. The Langdons of Elmira were among their friends.

*When they weren’t at home they were often out at Drake’s Point on the west side of Keuka Lake. One of the cottages there at the Point is now Lakeside Restaurant. The family arrived by riding the train to Hammondsport, then taking their naphtha launch from there.

*Madge, Dort, and Martha attended Ogontz Academy in Philadelphia… the only school in America with required military drill for girls. Photos show them fishing, sledding, playing baseball, skating, snowshoeing, sparring with boxing gloves, messing about in boats. On at least one occasion they brought a pony up onto the porch (and mother photographed it).

*Mrs. Drake photographed Glenn Curtiss flying the “June Bug,” and Geronimo touring the 1901 Pan-Am. She photographed trips to summer on Block Island, and to visit gold mines out west (including maneuvers by “Buffalo Soldiers”).

*It couldn’t last. They appear to have always spent more than they made, and the panic of 1913 wiped them out. Cousin Sid Cole was killed in World War I. The home and the summer home were lost, the girls went to work, and Mrs. Drake’s five boxes of albums with outstanding photos were rescued decades later by an alert antique hunter who snatched them up for a song, had some of them published in “American Heritage,” and donated them to Corning-Painted Post Historical Society.

*Mary Anne Sprague, who knew the Drake family, said, “They had fun. And they WERE fun.” And so they were. Their photos show it. And they also show our world, as it was so long ago, when no one dreamed of World Wars, and the 1900s still sparkled.

Two Fine Photo Shows at the Rockwell

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*Is photography an art form? Yes, as we can see from two exhibits at the Rockwell Museum.

*Some people might not be sure. After all, with a painting or a sculpture you have to start with a blank canvas, or a chunk of rock, and create something out of nothing. While with photography, you just point at what’s already there, and snap the lever – right?

*Unsurprisingly, there’s a good deal more to it than that, as John Doddato and Peter McBride show us. Even without getting into the technical stuff, selecting the right sight TO photograph… then stalking that fugitive blend of subject, angle, shadow, and light… sometimes takes hours of waiting for two or three seconds of opportunity.

*A staggering example is McBride’s photo taken in the region of the headwaters of the Colorado River. As I approached from across the room, it puzzled me. It looked almost like silhouette figures on a southwestern vase – though if that’s what it was, it was a contemporary piece. Even standing before it, I still didn’t get it… then finally my mind’s eye clicked everything into place. What had seemed like the elongated silhouettes of horses were actually the SHADOWS of horses, as seen from directly overhead, at an altitude of 600 feet.

*With help from his pilot father, McBride had crystallized a single instant from an incredible viewpoint, creating an outstanding image of one man and 21 horses in a split-rail corral.

*This huge color photo is part of the exhibition “The Colorado River: Flowing Through Conflict” in the Rockwell’s Temporary Exhibition Gallery. The huge Colorado is so heavily used that it actually peters out into sand long before it reaches the sea. McBride and his collaborator Jonathan Waterman demonstrated that fact after following the flow for hundreds of miles, and then walking 90 miles to salt water along the theoretical bed of America’s seventh-largest river.

*The journey and the photos are a celebration of the river. A gorgeous view of two anglers fishing in the Roaring Fork tributary captivates even non-fishermen. (Study the two men in the river – see how the blur of their movements adds to the scene.)

*A scene of Marble Canyon in the upper Grand Canyon turns our world upside down. The walls of the canyon rise straight on either side, and in between, down at the floor of the canyon is – the sky, white clouds captured perfectly in reflected blue.

*But the photos are also a disturbing record of how we use and misuse the mighty stream. A Las Vegas swimming pool is one of thousands of pools and water features that gulp water from the river and throw it off as evaporation, largely just for the sake of spectacle. An aerial view of Phoenix shows a mighty metropolis, complete with palm trees, country clubs, and water features, in land that’s naturally desert. Westerners often like to vaunt themselves as self-reliant rugged individualists, but in fact their life is made possible only by gigantic government projects, and massive consumption of other people’s water – in the case of Phoenix, one-third of it from the distant Colorado, another third from that river’s tributaries, and a third from nearby underground aquifers.

*For all that, residents are following an ancient tradition. Ancient Hohokam people created 1200 miles of canals to support themselves on the same site.

*While the McBride exhibit shines in eye-squinting color, John Doddato’s “In Pursuit of the American Landscape” show in the Members Gallery is understated grayscale using an old silver-gelatin process. Doddato was born in Sayre and lived in Big Flats, but he takes us on a photo journey of the American West.

*Some of the images here, such as the mitten rocks in Monument Valley, and the dunes at sunrise in Death Valley, are views of well-known, well-traveled scenes. But here also is a streamside scene of Castle Creek outside Aspen, centered on a dead and fallen spruce. Another photo records a grove of Aspens, quietly glowing.

*I find myself repeatedly gazing at the ancient Flame House under the overhang on Cedar Mesa. The large blocks of which the structure is built are impressive, but what captivates me are the four utterly black doorways. In one sense, they lead to that empty and long-lost world of the original inhabitants. In another sense, they open to every possibility that imagination might devise.

*I keep on saying this, but I’ve always got good reasons: go to the Rockwell Museum. The McBride show runs through February 7, and Doddato through March 10.

Tanglewood Nature Center — Forty Years Naturally

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If we lived in Elmira or Big Flats, or even Corning, we’d go there more often. But even from Bath we make the pilgrimage now and then, as we did twice in the past month, to Tanglewood Nature Center and Museum.
These last two trips were “on task” behavior, as our son Joshua in Houston asked us to deliver two framed photos for Tanglewood’s nature photography contest. We dropped them off, and we dropped in for the announcement of winners — he got second place in a field of twenty, for his “Stone Walls and Wooden Bridges” photo of Stony Brook Park!
His other picture, “Thunder in the Air,” was a vertical image of Taughannock Falls. First-place winner was a fine color close-up of a red-tailed hawk eating a dead snake. The fact that I can write about this at once enthusiastically and off-handedly proves that I am indeed a nature enthusiast. To me, and I’m sure to the good folks at Tanglewood, this makes an ideal subject for a photo. Third place was Edward Cordes’ hummingbird darting among yellow blossoms — an image which also made the cover of the annual report.
Some of the images are still on exhibit at the museum, so if you stop by you might get to see one of our favorites, “Gathering in the Swamp.” With stunningly-lighted vegetation, this photographer captured a dozen or more Canada geese, with a great blue heron flapping past in the background. I liked Steve Brinthaupt’s large picture “Life Along the River,” showing a blue damselfly on a green leaf… it brought me back to my waterside childhood in Rhode Island. “Food Fight” by Matt Burroughs shows the colorful blur of a blue jay and a cardinal lacing into each other. Joyce was especially tickled by “The Trio,” with three white-tail deer displaying their black outer tails.
The museum also features two bird-watching stations (one overlooking a pond), plus small live mammals, birds, and reptiles. You can walk through a life-sized diorama showing the various habitats and wildlife found in the Chemung Valley area. Here the taxidermist’s art has been put to good use, so that you walk within reach of a white-tailed deer, gray squirrel, piletaed woodpecker, and more. Near a little hands-on area are mounted beavers and one of our relatively new neighbors, a coyote.
Outside there are over nine miles of trails, some on neighboring land in the hands of the Nature Conservancy. Hiking here one spring day I was delighted to come upon a hawthorn bush, with its elegant terrifying spikes. Down near the old Boyd’s Farm visitors’ center I used to find little piles of husks where squirrels or chipmunks had made themselves comfortable to tear through a pile of nuts or seeds.
Just a few minutes from Elmira, or the airport, or the mall, you can be wandering quiet farm-and-forest land atop Harris Hill. Tanglewood has been emphasizing the PACE of nature — Preservation, Awareness, Caring, and Education — for children and adults alike. “Naturally” they welcome donations and memberships. Tuesdays through Saturdays, except major holidays, they welcome visitors as well. Tanglewood Nature Center and Museum is one of our region’s hidden treasures.
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