30 Sep 2026

Close Quarters

Lens-Artists Challenge #415: Move Your Body

Whitewashed limestone officers’ quarters at Fort McKavett State Historic Site, with a covered front porch, shuttered windows, a weathered wood-shingle roof, and two chimneys, beside a large live oak under a deep blue sky.
Home on Captains’ Row

When Anne set this week’s challenge, I knew exactly what I wanted to show. However, because I was in Colorado until Monday, I waited until I got home to put this post together. Like Anne, I seldom change lenses in the field. Anne asks what you’d do if you had a fixed lens for a particular shoot instead of a zoom lens and “had to walk forward, backward or sideways to get the shot.” Check out her post here for more information and guidelines for the challenge.

When I visited Fort McKavett State Historic Site in February 2026, I didn’t expect a historic site to command my attention so intensely. Much as I do when photographing nature, I found myself walking slowly through the grounds, marveling at how officers, soldiers, and their families lived in the 1800s. Because I knew I’d be photographing interiors for the most part, I mounted my super-wide-angle Sony FE 12-24mm F4 G lens and kept it on. At those focal lengths, zooming does little to bring a subject closer, so I had to move my body — stepping in, backing up, and working my way around each room — to frame my subjects.

Let’s visit Officers’ Quarters No. 4 at Fort McKavett State Historic Site. While junior officers and their families often shared quarters along Lieutenants’ Row, the company commanders—the captains—had single-family homes close to post headquarters. Four of these houses were built after the Civil War, and the three that remain are furnished as they would have appeared in the 1870s and 1880s. Walking through the front door took me straight back to that time. I’ll share two or three images from each of the following rooms: the living room, the dining room, and the bedroom.

Living Room

In this spacious room, the family could gather around the warmth of a cast-iron wood stove. A small writing desk with a pigeonhole organizer stood against one wall; a tufted pink chair and an upholstered settee invited visitors to sit; and heavy drapes framed a large window—a touch of Victorian comfort on the frontier. To take in the whole room, I stepped back to its edge and let the wide end of the lens stretch the scene from wall to wall.

Ultra-wide view of a restored 1870s living room with plank floors, a colorful patterned rug, an upholstered settee, a tufted pink chair, a square piano, a cast-iron wood stove, a writing desk with pigeonholes, and heavy draped curtains at the window.
A Frontier Parlor

The centerpiece, though, was the square piano. These long, rectangular instruments were a fixture of American homes for much of the 19th century before the more compact upright piano took their place. With its lid propped open and sheet music resting on the strings, this one looked as though someone had just stepped away from playing. I moved in close and shot from above to show both the keyboard and the instrument’s inner workings.

Antique square piano with a figured-wood case and carved legs, its lid propped open to reveal the strings and cast-iron frame, with period sheet music resting inside.
Notes Left Behind

Dining Room

The dining room was also very spacious, with a table set for six. A ham waited at the center of the table, surrounded by serving dishes, while glassware and oil lamps lined a side table by the window. What looks like a stenciled canvas floorcloth covered the wooden floor, a practical and decorative choice common in 19th-century homes.

Restored dining room with a round table covered in a blue-and-white striped cloth and set with pink plates around a ham, wooden chairs with pink cushions, a stenciled floorcloth, and sunlight streaming through a tall window.
Table for Six

The dinnerware was beautifully decorated: each plate had a painted floral center framed by a pink band and a gilded, scalloped rim, in what appears to be fine porcelain. For this shot, I stood over the table and pointed the lens straight down, letting the striped tablecloth frame the plate.

Overhead view of a scalloped plate with a pink and gold border and a painted pink flower with teal leaves at its center, resting on a striped, damask-patterned tablecloth.
Painted Bloom

Bedroom

With a large iron bed set in the corner, the bedroom also had a folding screen that offered a private place to change clothes and a small fireplace for cold West Texas nights. In the middle of the room stood a chair and a small side table holding a sewing box, where the captain’s wife might sit to mend clothes or do some embroidery.

Wide view of a restored bedroom with a black iron bed and patchwork quilt, a folding wooden screen, a whitewashed fireplace, a pink chair beside a small table with a sewing box, and yellow curtains around a bright doorway.
The Captain’s Bedroom

I couldn’t resist moving in close to that sewing box. A pincushion bristling with pins sat in a small metal cup, with a pair of scissors tucked into the tray below.

Painterly, textured image of a pale green pincushion stuck with pins in a small metal cup inside an open wooden sewing box, with scissors in the tray and a chair blurred in the background.
Mending Hour

Across from the bed, a washstand held a pitcher and basin, a hand-held stereoscope, and a scattering of stereographs. The stereoscope was the 19th century’s version of virtual reality: each card holds two nearly identical photographs taken from slightly different angles, and the viewer’s lenses merge them into a single image with a striking sense of depth. The hand-held design seen here, created by Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1861 and deliberately left unpatented, made stereoscopes affordable, and they became a popular form of home entertainment across America.

Antique wooden hand-held stereoscope resting on a dark tabletop among scattered black-and-white stereograph cards, with a white embossed pitcher standing in a basin behind it.
Depth of Another Age

I especially enjoyed being the only visitor at the site that day. It gave me the chance to examine each room and imagine what life was like in these quarters without any outside distractions.

Ann-Christine’s harmony challenge last week gave us a number of amazing responses. Your take on that challenge was excellent. I hope you will join this challenge, too. Please don’t forget to use the “lens-artists” hashtag in your posts so people can find your responses in the Reader.

Next week, Ritva will feature a new challenge. It will go live at noon EST in the USA. Tune in then to find out more about the challenge. Please see this page for more information about the Lens-Artists Challenge and its history. If you don’t want to miss any future challenges, please consider subscribing to the team members’ websites. Here they are:

That is the story behind the shots. For more like this, enjoy these related stories: Fort McKavett State Historic Site, Lens-Artists, Parks, and Texas. Until the next shoot, keep chasing the light and the wonders it reveals.

Sources

  • Texas Historical Commission — Fort McKavett State Historic Site Visitor’s Guide — thc.texas.gov/public/upload/publications/ftmckavett-visitorsguide.pdf
  • Texas Historical Commission — Fort McKavett State Historic Site — thc.texas.gov/historic-sites/fort-mckavett
  • Texas Beyond History — Fort McKavett: The Post on the San Saba — texasbeyondhistory.net/forts/mckavett/post.html
  • Wikipedia — Stereoscope — en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stereoscope
  • Encyclopædia Britannica — Square piano — britannica.com/art/square-piano

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