By Dan Waters
I made these photographs with an old wooden camera on a tripod, using 4×5” black-and-white sheet film. The lens was a 7-1/4” Verito, first introduced by the Wollensak company in 1911 for the use of pictorial photographers. To operate the shutter, you squeeze a black rubber bulb. It was delightful to wander the sun-dappled trails of the Irvin property with this vintage gear. The old, flawed glass seemed to understand perfectly the trees and stones of this ancient land, and rendered them in glowing language from a different time. I thoroughly enjoyed ducking under the dark focusing cloth to watch the Verito lens interpret the world in its dreamy way. The results may not be scientifically ideal. Geologists and botanists will probably have to take their own photographs for research purposes. But I hope these images capture the thrill I felt, knowing that the Vineyard’s nature-lovers, hikers and poets would soon have these amazing hills to explore, and immerse themselves in.
Dan Waters lives in West Tisbury, just down the road from Cedar Tree Neck. He is a visual artist and poet who recently retired from the Martha’s Vineyard Museum, and has returned to film photography, a childhood passion.
Photographs by Dan Waters
