Coovert worked with large format cameras, 8x10 inches and sometimes larger, that were placed on a heavy tripod. The glass photographic plates were often coated in the field with a light sensitive material just prior to use. He made his exposures by removing the cap on the camera lens.
This is the earliest picture we have of Coovert at work.

He is at a Spanish-American War Army Camp in Florida with the 2nd Mississippi Volunteers. We see him with several of his cameras arrayed about. Remarkably , in the background, we see where he built his own studio. There is the tell-tale angled roof where light flooded in. The images were gathered into an album for the unit.
 
 

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"In Search of J.C. Coovert" An illustrated lecture on the life and work of J.C. Coovert by Jane Adams and D. Gorton

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Cotton

Flood

"Cirkut"

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Sunny Side Plantation

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    "In Search of J.C. Coovert"
    page 3

    Coovert organized the situation of a disaster – the flood –, as he did the world of the cotton harvest, into an ordered universe. The people are neatly dressed, their accommodations -- despite the crisis that made them refugees -- orderly.

    There are a great many technical issues involved in Coovert's work which D. Gorton now speaks to.

    Methods and Materials

    From the very first images credited to J.C. Coovert, we see a mastery of the craft of photography.

    These pictures depicting a Mississippi flood in August of of 1890, even though they were converted to drawings by Harper's Weekly, establishes immediately the style and the concerns that stayed with JC Coovert throughout his working life. The credit on these flood pictures also name Patorno, his partner at that time. The pictures are located in Greenville, Mississippi. Note the dynamic framing and sense of movement in the pictures.

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