Tag Archive | Lewis Reed photographer
June 27, 2026  

Inventing the Scene: Lewis Reed’s Composite Experiment

Manipulated Photo

Not everything in the Reed Collection is what it seems. This early composite by Lewis Reed shows how he experimented with illusion long before Photoshop.

This unusual photograph offers a rare glimpse into the experimental side of early 20th-century photography. Created by Lewis Reed at a time when cameras relied on glass plate negatives and hand-mixed chemicals, the image reflects a period when photographers were not only documentarians, but also inventors; pushing the boundaries of what the medium could achieve.

At first glance, the scene appears to show a peaceful gathering along a wooded stream. Yet the composition quickly reveals signs of careful manipulation. The curved form across the top of the image, resembling the back of a chair or decorative arch, does not belong to the natural landscape. Its texture and sharp edge cut through the sky and treetops, suggesting it was introduced from a separate negative.

The figures also feel slightly detached from their surroundings. Their contrast is stronger, their edges more defined, and the lighting on each does not quite match. Most intriguingly, the woman seated on the ground appears to be the same woman standing between the two men. This repetition is a clear sign that Reed reused the same subject in different positions, further revealing the layered nature of the image and his playful approach to composition.

Such composite images were created through a painstaking darkroom process. Photographers used masking techniques, layered glass plate negatives, and contact printing to merge multiple exposures into a single print. These “trick photographs,” as they were often called, were popular between the late 1890s and the 1920s and were meant to entertain, surprise, and demonstrate technical skill.

This photograph stands as evidence of Lewis Reed’s curiosity and craftsmanship. While he is best known for documenting everyday life and early automotive history, this image reveals another side of his work–one rooted in imagination, experimentation, and the early artistry of the photographic medium.

September 25, 2018  

Lewis Reed: Enters 1936 Amateur Photo Contest

The Star published a series of pictures reproduced from photographs taken by local amateurs. The pictures were selected and judged each week and the best one chosen on its merits and published the following Sunday. Lewis Reed submitted his photo, “Sunset Over the River”, in the Washington Star Best Snapshots of the Week in The Star’s Amateur Contest. There was no indication where the photo was taken, but I’m guessing it was probably on the Potomac River, Maryland. At the time, Lewis Reed would have been 49 years old. There was no mention of whether or not he won a prize for his photograph, but I’m not surprised he entered this contest. He was a passionate photographer and always had his camera with him.

The full page image below is from the Sunday Gravure Section of The Washington Star newspaper. When looking at the top of the page, I wondered what the term “Gravure” meant, so I “googled” it. Turns out gravure refers to the special newspaper sections of photographs which were printed with this process starting around the late 1800s. In the 1930s, newspapers published relatively few photographs and instead published separate gravure sections in their Sunday editions. These sections were devoted to photographs and identifying captions, not news stories.

Star Amateur Photo Contest 1936

Full page image from The Sunday Star, Washington, D.C. – Gravure Section – June 28, 1936.

SUNSET OVER THE RIVER

“Sunset Over the River” taken by Lewis Reed in 1936

Lewis Reed was a well-known photographer in Montgomery County and many of his photographs are now part of the Montgomery County (Maryland) Historical Society photo archives. His photography has appeared in highly regarded history books such as, “Montgomery County: Two Centuries of Change” by Jane C. Sween, “Montgomery County (Then & Now)” by Mark Walston, “Montgomery County (MD) Images of America”, by Michael Dwyer, “Rockville: Portrait of a City” by Eileen S. McGuckian, and “Gaithersburg: History of a City”. His photographs have been featured in the Norris-Banonis Automotive Wall Calendar, on the national television show, American Pickers, and on television’s most watched history series, American Experience on PBS.

April 7, 2018  

Meet Lewis Reed, Photographer

Before opening his Dodge dealership in 1915, Lewis Reed was a well-known photographer in Montgomery County Maryland. At the turn of the century, before automobiles were even around, Lewis Reed toured up and down the East Coast on his motorcycle, taking photographs of landscapes, monuments, historic places, and people.

Some of the historic locations in his photograph collection includes the Black Rock Grist Mill, Smithsonian Institution, Montgomery County Maryland Almshouse, United States Capitol, Key Bridge, Union Station and other important sites in and around the Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. area. There are also photographs of many non-Maryland locations including Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Georgia, New York, Boston, Georgia, North Carolina, and Canada. Especially stunning are images of the aftermath of the 1936 Gainesville Georgia tornado, one of the deadliest tornadoes in American history. As his photograph collection reveals, Lewis Reed was on the scene for some of the most important events in the history of the twentieth-century, and he always had his camera with him.

Lewis Reed developed all of his own photographs. He had a darkroom in his house —  in the kitchen, to be exact — and worked at night to develop the negatives.

His photography has appeared in highly regarded history books such as, Montgomery County: Two Centuries of Change by Jane C. Sween, Rockville: Portrait of a City by Eileen S. McGuckian, and Gaithersburg: History of a City. His photographs have been featured in the Norris-Banonis Automotive Wall Calendar, on the national television show, American Pickers, and on television’s most watched history series, American Experience on PBS.

In a way, his photographs — more than 2500 in all — serve as an unwritten diary of his early adventures as an amateur photographer. My greatest pleasure now — more than 100 years later — is being able to share them.