Nonprofit Performance 360 Magazine Vol 4 No 4

get the new building, we would like to have three different darkrooms, wet collodion, tintyping, and traditional darkroom, and teach the techniques. We would like to have some professors come down from Rochester Institute of Technology and the George Eastman House to give lectures. We could have almost a whole school there because it’s a beautiful location and beautiful scenery to take pictures in. It would be ideal. We have talked to the Smithsonian and, if we can get the building, since we’ll have museum standards, we will be a satellite of the Smithsonian. We can borrow from their master collection and have rotations. I have not talked to the head curator for the George Eastman House, but he might be able to do the same type of thing. It would be nice to show these nice old artifacts instead of having them locked up and never being seen again, as they are now. It’s nice to see them in pictures, but to see them in real life is entirely different. We’re in conversation about how SynerVision can help this museum be the dominant museum and serve others. The museum will live on in perpetuity. We will have an endowment fund to preserve it forever. Staunton, Virginia, is a wonderful town which has preserved its history. It has a world- class Shakespearean theater. Right across the street from us, we have the most wonderful, absolutely huge, skylight. Two blocks up from us is Trinity Church with eight Tiffany windows, two of which are hand-signed.They are priceless. Without dedication, all of this knowledge and history is in danger of falling by the wayside. We’re just into cameras, but that is true in every form of life. I still have people who want me to give up and retire. After 50 years, it gets a little tiring, but I love it. I would love to get more people who are interested in this to come in and help. If you have a vision for something, you can make it happen. Put people around you who are competent and make it happen. Don’t give up on your vision. David Schwartz is the founder and curator of the Camera Heritage Museum in Staunton, Virginia. He was trained by Margo Kent, who was awarded Master of Photography by the Professional Photographers of America, and the Winona School of Professional Photography. www.facebook.com/CameraHeritageMuseum

outcome of the photo.The lens is really 50%. The remainder is how your eye composed the picture. We do not have anything from the Brady Brothers from the Civil War era. Most of the Brady plates were repurposed. Matthew Brady was going blind at the time because of doing daguerreotyping. Daguerreotyping uses mercury, which poisoned him, causing what’s called mad hatter’s disease. Those plates afterwards were repurposed and put in greenhouses, so they are lost now. We have Robert E. Lee’s official portrait for Washington College. They couldn’t use it because he did not buy his vest. He did that on purpose because he didn’t want to put his suit back on after the war. Without the vest, it was considered to be improper dress. We also have John Wilkes Booth’s family album. We are researching local photographers and their contributions to photography and local history. Sally Mann is right down the road from us in Lexington. She is a wonderful photographer. She still uses the wet plate procedure which was developed in 1850. Alfred Eisenstaedt was the famous Life photographer. He had two Leicas; one was wide angle and the other was a slight telephoto.He took everything with those two cameras. B.M. Clinedinst patented the reflex camera here in 1872, and Michael Miley patented the first color photograph in 1902. O. Winston Link lived here, although his museum is in Roanoke. We have a collection of over 2000 antique photos of Staunton and the surrounding Augusta County. These photos are truly worth a thousand words in

what they reveal about the life of the area. This section is also growing as we digitize the images. The Vision for the Future There are plenty of books out there about cameras and equipment. That’s not the problem. Books are out there, and images are on the Internet.What we want is to let people come in and actually see the equipment. We can’t let them touch it, but they can get up close and personal to it. It tells a lot. It’s entirely different from seeing it in a book. Every day on Facebook we put up a photo of a new camera and tell a little something about it.We like to have new likes on Facebook and Twitter. We’re listed and well-reviewed on TripAdvisor. We might be able to do videos and online courses on photography and its history to stir up interest. We have two types of tours: a $5 tour to walk around and take a look by yourself. We have just started a $7.50 audio tour. If you want a curated tour, it’s $20, and I spend well over an hour with you. But we need help to expand.We are trying to get new people on our board who are really interested, along with other people to give us a hand. We are now trying to acquire a nearby building, originally owned by artist P. Buckley Moss, which was built as a museum. It’s ideally suited for what we want, but it’s been sitting empty for five years. We need to raise funds for its purchase and repair. This would allow us to display all of our artifacts. We want to have a strong education element. Right now, we’re raising our revenue streams through GoFundMe and Facebook. If we

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