Good Living

Westporter is an artist, fire inspector, beekeeper, and then some

"The most fascinating day that I've had in 30 years of this business was going out into the field with Nate and watching him work," said Schaeffer, adding that it was amazing how many things can "screw up."

Nate Gibbons will freely admit that many things can go wrong in tintype photography.

"Most of the chemicals are explosive, carcinogenic, and extremely poisonous or all of the above," according to Gibbons, who ought to know. During the day, he is an inspector with the Westport Fire Department.

This Yale graduate became a volunteer fireman in 1984 while he was directing live television programming for corporate and broadcast clients, including the Fairfield Exchange. He said the only part he'll miss about that life is directing live multi-camera TV.

"The live direction is the ultimate pressure cooker," he added, noting that was why he found great satisfaction in doing it well.

While making training films for firefighters, he met Captain Ray Downing, who ultimately became Chief of Special Operations Command for the New York Firefighters and also lost his life on 9/11. Downing told Gibbons that the skills he had in video communications would be useful for a firefighter, and said that the fire service needed people like him.

Gibbons liked the honesty and genuineness of the firefighters he met. He thought that "they lived life fully and cared about people even though they may not appear to." So in 1995, he became a full-time paid firefighter in Westport.

This past January, he was promoted to inspector. He said he'll hate the fact that it's mainly a desk job.

Gibbons has another job. He teaches a nearly-lost art to undergrads at Yale. He is a skilled letterpress printer and platen press mechanic. He learned that by worked at that job as an undergrad. In 2000, the Bieneke Rare Book Library displayed a collection of former undergrad printing projects, including some of his works. Yale then tracked Gibbons down to ask him to take on a another project. Someone had given the university an entire warehouse of printing presses, parts and supplies.

"Remember," he said, "the scene in 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' where there is a huge warehouse full of packing crates. That's what [the warehouse in Brooklyn] looked like."

He said he and others took crowbars, started opening crates, and eventually rebuilt a number of presses. They were put in the residences at Yale, where, students use them to create stationery, posters and just about any other printed forms.

He thinks the opportunity for students to work with the presses is great for young men and women who have not had a chance to work with mechanical things, and adds that "there's a part of their brain that wants to work with their hands." He also thinks it's an innate part of human nature to want to build things.

He is certainly happy when doing so. He has rebuilt the old cameras that he uses for tintype photography.

And the process of making tintypes is also extraordinarily hands-on.

For Gibbons, it starts when the UPS truck delivers a 75-pound roll of tin-plated iron. He cuts it into plates that will determine the size of each unique photograph.

The next step is varnishing each plate four or five times with a black varnish that Gibbons has created by cooking a mixture of asphaltic minerals, solvents and tree sap.

An emulsion must be made from chemicals and then more chemicals are used to make that emulsion light sensitive.

Once in the field, Gibbons pours the emulsion over the plate, he bathes it in silver nitrate and has about 10 minutes to load the camera and take the photo. Then it's a rush to the darkroom, where developer is poured over it and it is rinsed with water. The plate is fixed with cyanide and if all the planets are aligned, the tin plate will have an exquisite detail of warm brown tones in almost three-dimensional detail. Gibbons has been know to let out a shout of joy when this happens.

Possible things that can go wrong? A hair falling onto the plate, bugs, dust, light leaks from wind blowing the dark cloth, hot weather. The emulsion can be too old or too new. Ultraviolet light affects the plates, and since it differs according to the time of day, the exposure needs to be adjusted accordingly.

Most old time tintype photographers shot in a studio because of the many processes and variables involved. However, Gibbons likes to shoot "the visual diversity of our little chunk of Connecticut."

Thus, he has outfitted a 1996 Chevy Blazer as a darkroom. It has water, a red light, chemical baths and a dark room.

The result can be the exquisite photos of nature such as those in the show at the Westport Arts Center recently. It can also be "many things which some people don't think are beautiful," according to Gibbons. He thinks that Exit 27 in Bridgeport, where the state has been doing construction for four years, has "a raw beauty" in its "ganglia of concrete, cement trucks and barrier pave."

His goal is to share this vision of "commonplace beauty" with the viewers of his photographs.

The Silvermine Guild of Artists likes his vision enough to have just accepted him as an artist.

What else does this Renaissance man do? When not running into burning buildings or being an Associate Fellow at Yale, he keeps bees with his wife, Lizz. The bees, at least, are NOT dangerous. "When you understand their moods, they're quite safe," according to Gibbons. So, they produce honey that is pure and not ruined by pasteurization, unlike the commercial kind. You may find some at the Village Hardware Store in Southport next September.