Our Living Past: A Platinum Portrait of Music Makers

For 35 years, photographer Tim Duffy has immortalized Southern musical heroes and the world in which they live, not only through the photographs he takes, but also through his Music Maker Relief Foundation, which promotes and supports the enduring tradition of Southern roots music. Our Living Past celebrates this distinctive regional sound through 25 iconic images of living blues musicians, supplemented by an array of related musical instruments and ephemera. 

Duffy’s images are made with the distinctive wet-plate collodion process, an early photographic method the includes tintypes. The images are printed using the platinum / palladium process, which provides the greatest tonal range of any printing method using chemical development. Organized by the Music Maker Relief Foundation, Hillsborough, North Carolina.

Exhibition overview from museum website.