The Last Jamboree

This year was the last Jamboree at John Coffer’s Camp Tintype. He’s been hosting it for 25 years, and it’s a lot of work for him, especially as he gets older. I took a workshop with him in May of 2023, and he mentioned then that 25 would probably be the final one. It ran from Wednesday, July 29 - Sunday, August 2. Lots of rain was forecast for the first few days, and it was raining when I got to Watkins Glen State Park (where I camped) on Wednesday, so I just stayed in the campground that evening and drove over to the Jamboree on Thursday morning. That turned out to be a wise decision since his farm was just a mud pit when I arrived.

I’m not sure how I got the HONOR of doing the women’s group photo at the 2024 Jamboree, and again for the 2026 one (pretty sure Courtney had a lot to do with it, and to her my undying gratitude!), but however it happened, the image will always be a favorite whenever we get together. Women, to me, are truly the future of wet plate. The creativity and talent in the group you see below is unmatched, not to mentioned they’re on of the friendliest and anti-gatekeepingest group you’ll ever meet!!

Almost all of the images below are scans of ambrotypes, so I’ve flipped the images horizontally so they read correctly to the real life scene, because that’s the way I display ambrotypes. The exceptions, shot as tintypes, are the tintypes of the shoot-around, John Coffer’s cabin, and the hobo tintype on the Liquid Death aluminum can.