Photographer brings Civil War to life with centuries-old technology

Barnes tries to continue the work of Civil War era photography using similar techniques, except his twist is that he embraces and integrates the modern world into his photographs. “I took on this project because I was interested in how contemporary photography meshed 150 years later with what Mathew Brady and Alexander Gardner were up to during the Civil War,” Barnes said. Barnes uses the wet plate photography methods - the same technology Civil War photographers Matthew Brady and Alexander Gardner used.

A spectator at the Antietam reenactment. “What's important about this battlefield is that it is the first time that photography was used as a tool to convey what was happening to the public at battlefields across the South and Maryland,” Barnes said. Civil war photographers such as Matthew Brady and Alexander Gardner took photographs of dead soldiers before the were buried - pioneers of photojournalism. But newspapers of the time didn't have the ability to reprint the images.

The "battle" during the reenactment at Antietam in 2012. “Civil War era photographers would've been killed if they were out in the battlefield,” Barnes said, “because they used very large cameras. And they also were out there with horse drawn buggies and their exposures were very long. So they wouldn't have gotten the feeling I'm trying to convey in my photographs."

“The most important ability a photographer from the Civil War era had to have was probably stamina,” Barnes said. “Alexander Gardner - for instance - arrived at Antietam - two days after the battle. He took 90 plates here. This takes a long time. It's very heavy and you go from one place to the other on the battlefield. That takes a really dedicated and devoted individual.”

Barnes took this portrait at an Antietam reenactment mixing the contemporary world with some dressed in period clothing. Notice the car in the background and the modern clothing from some of the subjects. “What I hope to accomplish by doing this work ,” Barnes said, “is to give my audience a sense of this idea that time is in flux.”

An Abraham Lincoln impersonator poses for his portrait this past weekend at the Antietam National Battlefield near Sharpsburg, Md.

At Cedar Creek in Strasburg, Va., Barnes captured this shot of a spectator up close to the reenactment. “When I think about what it would've been like to be a Civil War photographer,” Barnes said, “I'm happy that I'm here photographing reenactments and not the actual battles.”

In 2011 at Cedar Creek in Strasburg, Va., Barnes took this portrait with a car in the background.

Barnes also traveled to Manassas, Virginia in 2011 for a reenactment of the Battle of Bull Run. This photo shows reenactors on a pallet of water bottles. “The Civil War ended in 1865 but I am trying to transcend that time to give a contemporary feel for the type of imagery that can come out of the Civil War but update it to our time,” Barnes said.

At Gettysburg, Barnes tried to capture what a shot of a cavalry battle would have looked like.

Also from Gettysburg, another view showing the combination of the contemporary and the past, spectators interact with reenactors.

A 2011 reenactment in Gettysburg which shows reenactors loading their cars in the field.

Photographer Richard Barnes working in the field during a reenactment of the Battle of Antietam in Sharpsburg, Md.

A camera crew from Rock Center films photographer Richard Barnes, working in the field during a reenactment of the Battle of Antietam in Sharpsburg, Md.