I find this story fascinating so I went to pbs.org and searched "Civil War prisoner" and founds this page. The images in question aren't shown (dang it) but the transcript is there in pdf form and a video blurb about civil war photography. Eric http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/investigations/409_cwpowphoto.html --- Bob Rosen <afterswift@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Talking about darkroom work, PBS recently ran an > interesting segment on a > Civil War prisoner in a federal camp who secretly > built a studio in the > attic of a barracks building. He then built a camera > out of packing crates, > adapted a lens from something he had with him, and > made portraits of his > fellow Confederates. He stole chemicals from the > hospital nearby, and made > his own wet plates. > > By comparison, working in my darkroom is a luxury. > > This might be idle speculation: But as the public > gravitates to digital > instant gratification, we could find society > recreating the professionalism > of the Civil War era when photography was the > province of an elite group, > like doctors, who were respected and did work that > equalled that of the > portrait painter for the middle classes. In contrast > to the popular do it > yourself digital ephermeral CD technology, the > classic silver professional > will respond to the public need for permanence and > very high quality in both > portraiture and other fields > > Bob > > ============================================================================================================= > To unsubscribe from this list, go to > www.freelists.org and logon to your account (the > same e-mail address and password you set-up when you > subscribed,) and unsubscribe from there. > ____________________________________________________________________________________ Fussy? Opinionated? Impossible to please? Perfect. Join Yahoo!'s user panel and lay it on us. http://surveylink.yahoo.com/gmrs/yahoo_panel_invite.asp?a=7 ============================================================================================================= To unsubscribe from this list, go to www.freelists.org and logon to your account (the same e-mail address and password you set-up when you subscribed,) and unsubscribe from there.