In an effort to bring you the most authentic historical experience, ELC Creative Director Garrett Martin built a camera to utilize a brass lens that has been photographing Licking County for over 100 years. Richard Pound, of Don Pound Studio in downtown Newark, graciously allowed us to borrow the lens for this project. It was purchased by his father, Don, in 1953 when he acquired Mueller Studios from the downtown Newark Arcade. M.H. Mueller, a German immigrant, partnered with local photographer H.C. Wagoner in 1915.

As far as we know, the lens we’ve used came from one of these photographers, reaching back as far as 1907. Richard Pound remembers he and his father regularly shot images with the lens until the 1970s. Until the early 1980s, it was also used intermittently to shoot instant images for passports, identification cards, and newspaper headshots.

While technology advancements and digital photography drastically changed the industry, the lens quietly fell out of commission, becoming a display piece in the front window of Don Pound Studio for the next 40 years.

In our truest effort to tell the stories of our past and carry them into future generations, we saw beauty in capturing our Heritage Edition through a lens that has seen so much of Licking County in the last century. So please don’t mind the ever-so-soft focus or grain that is typically not seen when working with modern digital equipment; instead, savor the images captured through a landmark piece of Licking County history.