Shooting a Western Battle on Film
How I captured a historic reenactment on a Roll of Black and White Film
I had a fun assignment as a photojournalist at a small daily paper: the 150-year anniversary of the historic Wagon Box Fight at Fort Phil Kearny in Wyoming. Since I was dialing-in my darkroom, I decided to grab my Olympus OM2 film camera and a roll of TMAX 100.
I found the idea of black and white images of actors in historic costumes in the Wild West to be apropos to the theme of reliving history, or so I hoped. I’ll let the images speak for themselves.
I was often shooting wide open on a 50mm f1.4 lens and a variable neutral density filter which made it a little tricky. What surprised me was how many of the images were “keepers.” About 18 of the 21 frames I shot were very good. I narrowed my selection down to 14 frames.
Some of the subjects weren’t in perfect focus, but that was okay. I felt it added some honesty to the body of analog work.
More about the historic event
In the morning of Aug. 2, 1867, following a series of conflicts with white men, Sioux Chief Red Cloud and more than 1,000 warriors attacked a group of woodcutters and soldiers near Fort Phil Kearny.
The battle ensued for nearly six hours in what became known as the Wagon Box Fight. The civilian wood cutters circled around their wagon boxes for defense. However, the walls of the wagons were a pitiful 1-inch thick.
Remarkably, the soldiers held off the attack due in part to the fact that they were armed with newer rapid-firing breech-loading rifles–something which the Native warriors were not accustomed. The warriors sustained heavy losses as they used their traditional tactics of moving in fast on horseback for close combat.