I’m Photographing 3 Generations Of My Family’s Tools

I’m a third generation stagehand. My father and grandfather (“poppy”) were both theatrical carpenters, building sets for opera, Broadway and TV. My father’s tool collection has grown exponentially in my lifetime, and it contains not only his tools, but those of my grandfather as well as the man under whom my grandfather apprenticed, almost 80 years ago. He loves antique tools and often used them in lieu modern power tools.

The roadbox drawers are from the toolbox my father kept with him in the last shop at which he worked, for one of the big three TV networks, where he built sets for soap operas. They contain all the tools he used on a regular basis, as well as family history…my college dorm room phone number is written on the edge of one, the last Father’s Day notes from my sister (now gone) are in another. Scattered throughout are tins labelled with my grandfather’s handwriting and handmade cases with the dates they were completed. Many are older than me.

My father is retired and has been having heart trouble, so I’ve been shooting these tools with him as a way to record all the stories before they disappear forever. My first goal was to pull all the drawers out of everything and photograph them as they were, and now I am working through photographing the tools either individually or in little collections. For a number of them my father, a man who has never used an ATM machine or a cell phone and has little use for technology in general, sat with me and pushed the button on the laptop with my tethered camera. At first he rushed me through everything, but he gradually saw all the little tweaks and nudges result in better pictures.

More info: Instagram