Photo exhibit at museum
Published 3:59 pm Wednesday, June 5, 2013
The exhibit “Every Picture Tells a Story” opened May 25 at the Orcas Island Historical Museum and runs through July 15.
James Theodore “Jim” Geoghegan brings early Orcas Island history to life with his collection of photographs dating primarily between 1914 and 1941.
When his father, Richard Taylor Geoghegan, a consummate Irishman then living in England, died, Jim and older brother Fred decided to follow their mother’s brother, Richard Charles Willis, to Orcas Island. Arriving here in 1889, Fred and Jim homesteaded a place that is now just outside Moran State Park. After a short time they decided to purchase land close to Eastsound, and built a house on what is now the Orcas Medical Center.
Geoghegan captured the majesty and whimsy of Orcas and its inhabitants with the use of multiple formats like glass plate and nitrate negatives. Dozens of photos of family and community highlight the exhibit and illustrate Jim’s skills in composition and exposure.
The exhibit also showcases an array of his vintage photography equipment. Several Kodak cameras including a B3 from 1906, a five foot long Eastman enlarger paired with a Haynes MCM photometer, silver nitrate developing trays and a kerosene dark room “safe light.” These relics transport visitors back more than a century to view then state of the art technology.
For more info, visit www.orcasmuseum.org or call 360-376-4849.
