Last weekend I drove to Gettysburg to photograph. The excuse was Tillman Crane’s photo retreat and to see some of my Monalog colleagues that were going to be there. So if nothing else, I could say hello and do a little catching up in a socially distanced manner. I had not been back to Gettysburg since the obligatory middle school field trip with my son that everyone within several hundred miles makes. It had been around twenty years and to be honest I didn’t remember very much of the details.

I packed up my Plaubel Makina and left early Saturday morning.  Two and a half hours later I arrived without a hitch. To make a long story short despite the virus there were a lot of people throughout the park, much of them without masks. After driving to several of the monument locations and dodging the Covid deniers, I just could not get much of a feeling for what might excite me.  So what to do?  I could easily bag it or try to make something more of my outing.

Look, there is no shame in coming home empty. I’ve done it plenty of times.  But since we were talking about five hours of driving, why not try as hard as I could to find some good pictures to make and maybe something else.  So I worked hard to find a couple of opportunities in the park and then drove into the small town of Gettysburg to see what was there. What I found were even more people. A lot of field trips and families. And again, many without masks. It was beginning to seem that the itch wasn’t worth much of the scratch, but after driving around town a few more times I found a couple of things that looked promising.  After a few hours I finished a roll of 120 Tri-X film. There are actually one or two pictures I am looking forward to seeing once the film is developed and I’ve made a proof sheet. As always I remain hopeful!

Seeing my friends for a few minutes in the lobby of the local Best Western was a treat and a real bonus, but could I do more to make this outing truly worthwhile?  Time permitting I had been thinking of making a detour on the way home to stop at Baldwin’s Book Barn in West Chester, Pennsylvania. I’ve always wanted to visit this place as it’s pretty well known, but hadn’t ever made the trip from Doylestown.  Today, as things would have it, time was permitting!

The Book Barn was built in 1822. The five-story building is packed with 300,000 used books, manuscripts, and maps as well as paintings, prints, estate antiques, and other collectibles.  If you are a used bookstore junky like me you definitely need to check this place out! It’s amazing and within a short amount of time I had become lost several times looking through all the nooks and crannies. I finally found the photography section. A few books were interesting, but not enough for me to buy. Not to be deterred, I kept looking around and stumbled onto the section titled “Artists”. There stuffed on a shelf I found a beautiful first edition of the two volume Daybooks by Edward Weston. Yes, I have the Aperture softcover reissue that combines both volumes into one fat paperback, but truth be told I had never took the time to really read them. Maybe it was the paperback format this didn’t provided the dignity the Daybooks deserved. Needless to say I had to have these two books!  I am reading them now and there is no comparison between the original hard covers and the later soft cover edition. The books are larger, the paper is better and the reproductions of the photographs are nicer!

Left the Book Barn with a smile on my face and made it home in time for diner with my lovely wife.

Not a bad way to finish off a pretty good day!

Stay safe,

Michael