Texas Date Nails

Texas Date Nails

        The Fourth of July weekend was a few weeks away. I’d spent the better part of each week since spring looking for urban images. The time was coming for a small break. My girlfriend and I jumped on a plane bound for Texas to visit family. Texas in Houston is about as hot as it gets. The unbearable heat made the lack of road tripping for images a vanishing thought. The first few days were filled with the usual family affairs. Somewhere down the line the desire to explore overcame my good common sense to stay the hell out of the sweltering heat. We both hopped in the car and hit the road in search of adventure. About an hour into our journey a small Texas town came into view. This town had a few antique stores on the main drag.

Time to dig for rusty gold.

       The view past the front door of the first antique store was amazing. There were a ton of western antiques the likes I never seen. What really caught my eye was a center display of nails. These were no ordinary nails. Texas date nails to be exact. I had never seen nor even heard of anything like this in my life. The main display of nails gave a small history. The date nails were used by the railroad to signify when work was done. Paperwork must have been overrated back then. While looking at the main display of nails, I was approached by Frank. He was a rather friendly sort of a man. He was also a bit of an authority on the nails. Frank seemed to be at home giving me the history of the date nails. What amazed me was the quality of the nails. These were made around the turn of the century yet the quality of workmanship was like I’d never seen. 

      There were two large boxes of date nails. Time to get busy here. I spent the better part of an hour looking though those boxes. Sorting down the nails I found three dozen of the best nails. At the time I wasn’t real clear on how I was going to photograph the nails. I just knew there was an image there somewhere. With the bag of nails secure and paid for, we said our goodbyes to Frank and headed down the road. Lunch time came and we found a nice local café. The food and atmosphere were right up there with the best places I've eaten local flavor. Despite the good food I couldn’t stop thinking of just how to get those nails on film. They were small and detailed so a tight composition was in order. My main concern was I was short on nails. The end of the day came and we were back home with family. I found a small piece of cardboard to work the nails. On the cardboard I sketched a 4”x5” area to place the nails in. After placing a dozen or so nails it became apparent there were not enough nails. Of all the bone headed things to do. I could have easily bought more nails. Nothing to do now but head back in the morning to get more nails. 

      The next morning we set out for that antique store. This time I dug even deeper to find the best of what was left. Another hour and I was set. The weather was turning angry so we headed for home. Back home I took another piece of cardboard and repeated the process. This time I could tell there were plenty of nails.

       I hope.

 

Texas Date Nails - Final composition in clay

       The next day we headed back home. During the flight I spent a few hours working on a possible composition. I finally had an idea of what to do. The solution provided yet another problem. The arrangement of nails in my head would prove to require more physical nails. I’d done it again. No reason to panic here. Focus and enjoy the flight. There was plenty of time to work out a solution. 

       Back home I set to arrange the nails. Arranging the nails proved even harder than I had imagined. My original thinking was to gently tap the nails into some soft pine. To accomplish the arrangement of nails I sunk all of the nails into a piece of foam core. This would allow me to arrange and rearrange the nails. The foam core worked real nice. The nails poked out the back so tightly together there was no way to tap them into the wood. There was too much chance for the wood to split. After more tinkering another possible solution came to me. I could use clay. That way the nails could be arranged and rearranged until I was happy with the arrangement. Once the clay dried I could then place the clay on a board and photograph in a vertical position. Sounds good in theory. So did the time frame for the clay to dry. 

       Twenty four hours my ass. That clay ended up taking a good month to harden. 

11"x14" View Camera - Nails Studio Setup

       I was on a serious deadline to get the nails on film. The solution ended up being fairly simple. I tilted the nails at a slight angle. When the clay was placed vertical, the nails sagged and ultimately would fall off the clay. To get the nails on film I brought out the 11”x14” view camera. I could tell from the very first view on the ground glass there were not enough nails. Unbelievable. There were 52 nails and that was still not enough. At that point I decided some retouching work in Photoshop would be required. I sorta figured on adding more nails digitally anyway. 

       No real concern. Right…..

       The first negative showed far too many spaces between the nails. Being on a deadline to get this done I almost gave in and used the first negative. So glad I ended up rearranging and shooting a second time. The second attempt was so much better. Still short on nails yet I was by this point expecting it.

       The negative was drum scanned and sent back in a flash. I then set about to outline each and every nail in Photoshop. The outlines allowed for masking and contrast corrections. This was not going to be easy. Once the nails were outlined I loaded the mask, reversed and filled in the background with black. The negative still showed very clearly the black clay. After the outlines were done I set out to adjust each nail. I could then add more nails digitally. The process to add nails was fairly straight forward yet time consuming. The real problem comes after so much time spent retouching. The temptation to continue working the image becomes crippling. At some point I decided that 48 hours of retouching was enough. I had my ideal image.

       In the end I spent close to 50 hours retouching to get the image. Along the way I added another dozen nails. The efforts paid off in a huge way. This is by far the most unique shots I have ever taken. The real irony is in the fact that I left my cameras at home for the trip to Texas. I wasn’t even thinking of scouting for images that week in Texas. I just wanted a break. Turns out I got much more than I bargained for. All in the name of creativity of course. 

  

Texas Date Nails