Over the weekend, Music Maker artist Cary Morin visited us at the Music Maker Grotto to have Aaron and I do a Tin Type session with him. We were fortunate to have interns Swathi and Thomas on hand to help!

Cary is of the Crow Nation of Wyoming. He has toured since he was in his early 20s with different bands. With his last kid off to college, Cary and his wife got rid of most of their possessions, bought a small Winnebago, rented out their house and have hit the road, touring throughout the States going town to town, state to state, show to show.

One thing that Cary has talked about that is very, very interesting to me is his Indian view on the legendary Edward Curtis photos. Curtis photographed exclusively in the same method that Aaron and I are exploring. Curtis is among the greatest and he focused 30 years on photographing the vanishing traditional Indian culture at the turn of the 1900s. Cary was on tour in Japan once; he was eating at a restaurant and looked up at a Curtis photo and there was his great great uncle. It was a revelation to him. Cary started to make trips to the Library of Congress to look for family members in their photo collection as many Indian friends that search for photos of their relatives.

Aaron and I did 23 Tin Types that day. As we looked at them, Cary was astonished. He looked much darker than he is. It made him think that the old photos of his ancestral tribe members. He thought their darkness was from the life in the sun, but he realized they could have been just as light as him, it was the old process that changed their skin tone.

Cary was thrilled to be documented in such a style.

-Tim

Check out some more of the photos below: