Hunter Penrose no more

Well that happened a lot quicker than expected. I’m still surprised that its gone.

I had mentioned on Facebook that I might consider selling my Hunter Penrose camera, I wasn’t using it and its such a shame as its a wonderful thing but takes up a huge ammount of space in the studio. I was contacted by another wet plate photographer friend who was interested and we came to an agreement we were both happy with. So the camera, plate holder, table, silver nitrate tank and 36″ f6.3 lens became one big package deal.

There was one problem. He lives over 1700 miles away.

Apparently theres a network of “couriers” that deal with such things. Yesterday I was at the studio showing Sam, a new wet plater, some smaller cameras I have for sale. My mobile rang, it was one of the couriers saying he was 25 minutes away. Weird as we hadn’t arranged a date or a time and it was just luck I happened to be in the studio. Oh well, as good a time as any.

Now anybody that knows these cameras knows they are big, heavy and awkward to carry. We wheeled it to the top of the stairs but had to carry it the rest of the way. Turns out its easier to take downstairs than it is up. Thankfully.

The weird thing is, I found this quite an emotional event. Yes I know its just a camera but this is a very special camera that I’ve had for a good few years. I couldn’t even bring myself to take a photograph of it driving off into the Manchester sunset.

I’ll not even mention how it was packed into that van. Apparently he had another four pick ups before it all gets loaded onto a big truck for its long trip. I do hope it all gets there and in good order. We did help him move stuff around and protect it the best we could.

Now theres a big empty space in the studio… maybe its time I did some restoration work on that 12×15 inch studio camera?