I had been offered the opportunity to capture
Adam Skiles working on one of his metal life
sized statues, but that's only part of it.  He
would be working inside a 100+ year old
foundry in our town that is still in private
hands and is hopelessly lost in a time warp.

I had never seen the forge fired though I've
photographed fairly extensively inside this
dream spot where time has stood still.

I knew that what was desired was the
typical Nikon type of color photos and those
are easily done.  I've included one here
for reference.

Adam Skiles, Kelly Foundry, Tonopah NV.

Beyond the Nikon capture though I was
free to do anything I wanted.  I brought my
venerable Kodak 2D with an 18" Gundlach
Achromatic Meniscus Portrait f6 lens,
and the Cooke 12 1/2" Aviar f6 lens.

Adam Skiles, Kelly Foundry, Tonopah NV. Gundlach 18" Meniscus f6

Of course working inside a 100 year old
foundry with it's coating of smoke and dust
is very like working in a cave.  I was
a solid 1 second @ f6.  Easy for the Packard,
but of course that causes all kinds of other
problems to be solved.

Adam Skiles, Kelly Foundry, Tonopah NV. Cooke Aviar 12 1/2" f6

I only bothered Adam once to actually pose
for the lens and hold for 1 sec.  Beyond that
I did shots that are simply smeared with
the action of hammering and forming iron.

Hammering Iron, Gundlach 18" Meniscus f6

I made 10 exposures of which these are the
3 favorites.  As a post script and to illustrate
how fleeting opportunity is, I did some errands
and fetched back the 14X17 a couple of
hours later and the fire was already dropped,
the show was over.