For the record: Contributing to the HDP

By Harley Cowan

Cloud Cap Inn (1889), Mount Hood. This photo was selected as a finalist in the Preservation50.org national photography contest. Image: Harley Cowan

The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) was established in 1933 in a tripartite agreement between the American Institute of Architects (AIA), The National Park Service (NPS) and the Library of Congress as a make-work program to employ architects during the Great Depression by recording architectural heritage. While several New Deal era programs like the Farm Security Administration and the Works Progress Administration were discontinued in the ‘30s or ‘40s, HABS is on-going and active today. In 1969, it was joined by the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) and, in 2000, the Historic American Landscapes Survey (HALS), was added. These three programs constitute the Heritage Documentation Programs (HDP). They are still administered by the National Park Service. HABS/HAER/HALS archives are the largest and most used collections in the Prints and Photographs Division of the Library of Congress.

HDP is the oldest federal preservation program in existence and the longest lasting official partnership between a private organization and the federal government. What some people may not understand is that the HDP initiative is active; the archives are not merely static collections from decades past. New heritage sites continue to be documented. Furthermore, anyone may contribute measured drawings, large format photographs, and written histories to HABS/HAER/HALS provided that they adhere to the comprehensive standards for the content and composition of architectural and engineering documentation as defined by the U.S. Secretary of the Interior and the procedures developed by the Library of Congress for creation, transmission, and storage of archival materials. These standards ensure a consistent and enduring record.

In what so far has been a four-year-long passion project combining my interests in darkroom photography and historic preservation with my career in architecture, I have taught myself how to photographically document our architectural heritage. I am interested in filling the vacuum of attrition for these traditional skill sets. The specialized nature of this work means that documentarians must have the ability to use traditional technology that, while seemingly anachronistic to someone who has only lived in the computer age, had been standard practice for nearly two centuries. The modern large format camera that I use is made of machined aluminum and precision Swiss gears but is essentially the same as the cameras used to make Daguerrotypes and tintypes in the 1800s. The archival standards require black and white film but this camera can be used to make a glass plate or a collodion wet plate photograph.

As part of the Secretary of the Interior Standards, it is required that perspective correction be done in-camera at the time of photography. A typical smaller format camera, for example, centers the lens orthogonally on the film or sensor. When taking a picture of a tall building, tilting the camera up to get the top of the building causes the vertical lines to converge as they get further away. Avoiding this distortion requires the use of a camera with independent positioning the film plane and the lens plane. The large format camera consists of two standards or boards, one to hold a lens and one to hold the viewing glass and film, connected by bellows. Each standard has a variety of movements (swing, tilt, shift, rise) affording the photographer deliberate control over perspective and focal plane.

Film photography is a lot like playing an instrument: when practicing there is always a do-over, but never an undo. When you know that, it changes your approach, your investment in the process compared to shooting digitally. You learn to see what you want before you start. You learn to turn down shots. You learn to edit. You learn to determine your exposures. So when the time comes to perform, you can take each shot deliberately, as if it is all that matters. There is no playback screen to review your work and no infinite storage to rack up hundreds of photos.

Cloud Cap Inn (1889) Room; the far wall, fireplace, and structural timbers are original fabric. Image: Harley Cowan

Large format photography uses film in individual sheets (4”x5” or larger), not rolls, allowing for independent development of each image. Negatives and prints must be developed by hand (automatic processors do not meet archival standards), treated in a hypo clearing bath between water rinses, and toned with selenium. Extensive final rinsing must ensure no residual hypo remains. Prints must be made on fiber-based paper. Resin-coated papers do not meet archival standards. The large format negative is preferred for two reasons: longevity of the film and clarity of the image. The material stability of cut sheet film satisfies the archival requirements for longevity (500 years), while the clarity of the resulting image comes from a high level of resolution not possible in smaller film or digital formats. Film can always be digitized but exclusively digital information may not always be recoverable due to the vulnerabilities of digital data including media degradation, hardware and software obsolescence, changes in operating systems, file format migration, proprietary formats, etc. In addition, maintenance of digital archives is much more expensive than maintenance of film archives.

I took my first HABS photo during a photography workshop on Sauvie Island near Portland, Oregon. It was a photograph of the Bybee-Howell House (1856), one of the Oregon Territory’s oldest surviving examples of Georgian Style architecture, built just 50 years after Lewis and Clark passed through on their upriver journey home. Later, I discovered that the Library of Congress had only two photographs of Bybee-Howell, both taken in 1934. I contacted HDP and asked if they would like a donation of the negative. After scrutinizing how they film had been processed, they accepted the donation into the HABS collection.

In 2016, SRG Partnership granted me a research fellowship to learn the ropes of HABS/HAER photography. For a primer in historic preservation, I enrolled in the University of Oregon's Pacific Northwest Historic Preservation Field School, attended lectures by preservation experts, and performed hands-on work restoring a Civilian Conservation Corps Workers’ Cabin from 1937 at Mount Rainier National Park. Next, I arranged and planned trips to document two properties: Cloud Cap Inn (1889) at 6,000 feet of elevation on Mount Hood in Oregon and B Reactor (1944) at the newly established Manhattan Project National Historical Park at the Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington.

Setting up to photograph exteriors at B Reactor. Image: Harley Cowan

It is a privilege to photograph these historic places for future generations to view. Thanks to the foresight of the Park Service and the AIA, today we are able to connect with and understand our heritage sites both near and far, extant or not, by means of these long-term and ongoing programs.

For more on the UofO’s Preservation Field School: https://www.harleycowan.com/blog/2016/9/8/preservation-field-school-1

For more about a stormy night spent in a 127-year-old alpine lodge: https://www.harleycowan.com/blog/2016/12/29/a-night-at-cloud-cap

For more on my week climbing around the world's first full-scale nuclear reactor: https://www.harleycowan.com/blog/2017/7/4/a-cathedral-of-science