Out of Focus in the Yard

I’m not sure if John B Capewell’s camera had a viewfinder or any way of telling if his exposure was going to be out of focus. Looks like he had his lens set on a distant focus because the house in the background is nice and sharp while the subjects of his photograph are blurry.

The house looks similarly constructed but nowhere near as grand as the house in last week’s photograph. I assumed the house from last week was where John and his many siblings grew up. I have a few negatives with either the house in the background of this week’s post or a place very similar. I assume that this may be John and Ella’s place in Westville, New Jersey.

The people I sort of recognize in this shot look like John’s mother, Whillie Batt Capewell on the left and John’s wife Ella on the left. I don’t recognize the other folks.

As with all of the photographs in the Capewell Collection Glass Negative Collection, I placed this 5″ x 7″ glass negative on a lightbox and shot it with a digital camera locked down on a tripod. The “processing” was done digitally on a Mac using Adobe Photoshop.

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