In 2022, Arlington photographer Mac Cosgrove-Davies completed a documentary project on volunteers in the community. Now he is turning his lens on those who work behind the scenes to keep Arlington running.
His latest project, “Essential Arlington,” focuses on county workers who get little recognition, even though their work is vital.
“There are people who work in Arlington—who may not live in Arlington—but work [here] doing stuff that basically makes Arlington tick. If their job was not done, Arlington would be diminished in very substantial ways,” says the artist, who lives in Westover.
Cosgrove-Davies uses the historic wet plate collodion photography process commonly known as “tintype” to create unique, old-fashioned-looking portraits. To achieve a sepia-toned effect, he coats black-lacquered aluminum plates with a syrupy chemical solution. The plates are then placed inside the camera body and exposed before they dry (hence the term “wet plate”). This process produces a direct positive image on the plate, meaning left and right are reversed, like a mirror.
Because the wet plates have to be coated, exposed and developed within minutes, Davies brings a portable dark tent to each shoot and sets it up in the trunk of his car.
The dark tent has graced him with some moments of serendipity—including the one that produced his most impactful photo so far in the series. He was doing a photo shoot at the Traffic Engineering and Operations Bureau when Lee Carrig rolled up in a street sweeper.
“His long whiskers and the sweeper’s bristles shouted out to be photographed,” Cosgrove-Davies says, “and Lee was kind enough to agree.”
It was very hot that day and the temperature inside Cosgrove-Davies’ portable dark tent was in the 90s. Extreme temperatures can affect the chemical reactions for the wet plate process, he explains. This is what happened in the case of Carrig’s image. The heat resulted in an unexpected swirling effect on the plate—a welcome surprise. “It adds a sense of drama and mystery that I find appealing,” he says.
After setting up his tripod and antique camera on a metal grate walkway over a large field of water aeration tanks, Cosgrove-Davies realized: “If the camera went into the aeration tank, it would be a one-way trip for my 1920s vintage Century Universal 8×10.”
He started searching for a backup camera and added a 1940s Ansco Deluxe View—he calls it a “fixer-upper”—to his toolkit.
Each shoot takes about 10-30 minutes, and Cosgrove-Davies says his inquiries have been met with enthusiasm. Take his visit to the Arlington Equipment Bureau, which manages and maintains a fleet of 1,200 vehicles, including snowplows, dump trucks, street sweepers, police vehicles and fire and rescue apparatus. A manager there came up with an idea for a gag photo involving one of the county’s new electric vehicles.
“The manager quickly picked up on what I was doing and hatched several ideas for the shoot,” Cosgrove-Davies says. “This included an image of two mechanics puzzling over the ‘frunk’ [front trunk] of a Mustang Mach-E, as if to say, ‘Where’s the engine?'”
Next, the manager procured a pickup truck and a step stool for Davies to use. He set up the tripod inside the pickup bed so that his camera was high enough to see inside a huge dump truck engine the mechanics were working on.
“Essential Arlington” follows on the heels of Davies “Arlington Volunteers” project, which was on display at Arlington Central Library last spring and remains at the library’s Center for Local History. That series featured volunteers donating their time to a variety of local causes, from helping animals and providing meals to neighbors in need to collecting clothing for children.
“I thought I’d do another project in keeping with the idea of honoring those who are just doing what they’re doing and, if you will, kind of invisible,” says the photographer.
Cosgrove-Davies himself has often been one of the helpers. He worked as an energy specialist for the World Bank for 25 years, traveling to developing countries such as Uganda, Laos, Cambodia and Nigeria to install and supervise energy projects. After retiring in 2018, he turned his focus more fully to volunteer and pro bono work.
“One thing I came away with is that you don’t need to travel thousands of miles to find people in need,” he says. “There are people in need in our backyard, so that is partly what inspired my interest in volunteering.”
As a member of the county’s Community Emergency Response Team (CERT), Cosgrove-Davies was especially active at the height of Covid, helping at area vaccination clinics.
He also served as a mentor through a D.C.-based program called Best Kids that helps children in foster care. (He still talks nearly every day to the mentee he was assigned seven years ago, even though that boy is now 22 and has aged out of the program.) He is also a member of Arlington Spellbinders, a group of volunteers who share the art of storytelling in programs throughout the county.
“You never know what impact you’re going to have. So I’ll just keep doing what I’m doing and hope there is some positive impact,” Cosgrove-Davies says.
His passion for photography started at age 12, when his mother, who was in a photography club, installed a dark room in their house.
“I took it over,” he says. “I spent a lot of my youth in a darkroom making black and white prints.”
He would later complete an independent study on historic photographic processes at Gettysburg College. Today, his work is represented in collections at the Library of Congress, the Maier Museum of Art at Randolph College in Lynchburg, and the Ogunquit Museum of Art in Ogunquit, Maine.
Cosgrove-Davies is the great grandson of artist Arthur B. Davies, whose works are in museum collections worldwide.
So far he has done about five shoots for his “Essential Arlington” project, producing between three and six plates per shoot. He is aiming for a total of 40 shoots or more. While most of his subjects to date have been county workers, he hopes to expand the series to include other industries, schools and private companies or contracting firms.