Notes
Emailed John Muir on 12/6/23 for more information on why/how he made this photo montage.
January 30, 2024: Jon Bielinski told me that the photos were taken before the major renovation on the boat completed in 1997. The purpose of the project was to have a record of all the interior spaces, fittings, seats, oarlocks, etc. to have a detailed guide for the renovation.
Jon B. said John Muir built at mechanism that moved along the whole length of the interior of the boat to take photos from the same distance. He also set up uniform lighting.
Photos were taken in rows across the width of the boat. Then the camera was repositioned to take photos across the next area.
John Muir printed all the photos himself in a darkroom. Then he placed them in order and trimmed each to fit exactly next to the photos that showed adjacent areas. Photos are in a variety of rectangular shapes.
February 9, 2024: John Muir told me he got the idea from a technique from underwater archeology used to photograph sunken ships. John built a track and a cradle for a big Rolleiflex camera which he used to take a series of photos of the whole interior at same focal length at a distance of 3-4 feet. That took about a month. Then he spent several months developing and printing the images so they all matched up. He decided to cut the images since they fit together better that way, less distortion.
He pieced tiger the images on a board painted painted white and attached them with spray adhesive.
