Dr. Evermor's Forevertron & HH Bennett's Studio

I had a very busy spring, and now that it's summer (how'd that happen?), I'll try to take advantage of the holiday weekend to catch up on some blogging.  In June we had a family gathering in the Wisconsin Dells with the obligatory boat rides on the Upper and Lower Dells and a lumberjack breakfast at Paul Bunyan's Cook Shanty.

But the two things I had always wanted to see in the Dells? Dr. Evermor's Forevertron and H.H. Bennett's Photographic Studio!

The Forevertron is an amazing outdoor sculptural environment created by Tom Every a.k.a. Dr. Evermor from salvaged items.


He was doing steampunk before steampunk was cool. I won't even try to describe this in words. You can see my full Flickr set here. We were fortunate to meet him on the day, and the official Dr. Evermor website is up, but still under construction. Besides the Wikipedia article linked above, you can read more at Roadside America and PBS.org.

On a slightly different tack, the H.H. Bennett Studio is small museum run by the Wisconsin Historical Society, which preserves a 19th-century photographic studio. (If you've ever wondered, my on-line name is "vintagepix" because I have a collection of vintage photos.)

So this site might not be for everyone's tastes but I am entertained by giant cameras and stereocard viewers (modeled here by my big brother)

and taking a family photo through the lens of an antique camera.

(For those of you who know your optics, we are upside down in the original photo.) So if you're in central Wisconsin this summer, consider a road trip!