Editorial comment for this plate:

HICKMAN CREEK.

Our frontispiece, this week, is from a negative by Mr. H. B. Pearson, an amateur photographer of Boston, who has recently spent considerable time in the South, especially in Kentucky and the blue grass region.

“Hickman Creek,” Mr. Pearson writes, “is a picturesque little stream that winds along the railroad through the blue grass country, and finally empties into the Kentucky River. The men were at work repairing a wall at the base of a large embankment, and gathering rocks from the bed of the stream. I had them hold their positions while I took the picture, and you would have been greatly amused if you could have seen the attitudes which they assumed. Finally, however, I succeeded in posing them to suit, with the exception of one old fellow who could not resist looking up to see me ‘shoot the instrument,’ as he said.” The negative was on a Carbutt plate developed with pyro and potash. “I use eikonogen only for “instantaneous work,” Mr. Pearson concludes.

Horace Bertram Pearson: 1866-1948

An amateur who lived in Brookline, MA, Pearson was a member of the Boston Camera Club and worked as an insurance and real estate dealer.