The Family Tools

Name: The Family Tools
Address: New York, NY, US
Telephone: +16464831137

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The Family Tools

Third generation Local One IATSE Stagehand, photographing the tools of my father and grandfather and telling their stories.

02/25/2025

If you knew my father at work from the early 70’s onward, you knew him dressed like this…hickory stripe overalls, and most often a white t-shirt underneath. It changed up on occasion, in the winter perhaps a grey sweatshirt underneath or a fleece-lined flannel shirt over it, but always the overalls. When he retired, I snagged one of his last pairs out of the Goodwill bag. So here they are, photographed in my makeshift studio, and featured in some ID photos and a work photo over the years.

12/23/2023

Vulcan Plow Co, #95. My father was forever coming home from some flea market somewhere and holding out a tool like this and quietly saying “Seano, look what I found….only $2!” And then he’d cackle like he got the deal of the century.
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12/21/2023

Stanley Block Planes, No. 98 and No. 99. Bonus BTS shot of my editing suite, a lighting booth at a theatre in NYC. Pretty sure my father would smile at the juxtaposition, using a state of the art lighting console as a work table to retouch a photo of two planes patented in 1895…
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12/05/2023

My personal tool pouch that’s on me most days…a rock climber’s chalk bag with a wrench, a couple of testers, some small screwdrivers. Unlike my father and grandfather - who were both theatrical carpenters, I am a theatrical electrician. This means an entirely different set of tools for an entirely different skill set and time...I carry hand tools that are appropriate for hanging lights, messing with little switches on weird controllers, a headlamp for crawling around backstage to fix things in the dark.

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11/18/2023

Unlike my father and grandfather - who were both theatrical carpenters, I am a theatrical electrician. This means an entirely different set of tools for an entirely different skill set and time...I carry hand tools as well as diagnostic tools for lighting networks. This is the crescent wrench I carry with me, pictured without the lanyard it's always attached to when I'm working at heights over other stagehands. I did the "whipping" myself, which is the black trick line handle…both for comfort as well as to personalize it.

06/19/2022

Happy Father’s Day! Thinking of my father and grandfather today, I decided to make my images available for sale….so you can buy images from The Family Tools! Hopefully I’ll sell enough to actually print this f*cking book! Images are available at listed sizes, but can be made much bigger should you desire. I can also print on metal or wood, just DM me and ask. Link to my shop is in my profile. Let me know what you think!

01/01/2022

Happy New Year!! I hope you are all safe and healthy and Omicron/Delta free. I myself have been locked down in NYC for the past couple weeks as we set new records daily for infections and hospitalization, and most of my friends currently have Covid or are just recovered. The good news is that I’ve had time to shop the book around a bit, and I’ve been contemplating some fun new projects. So good things to come in 2022! Alright, onto this post…what is this?
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05/12/2021

Today is the second anniversary of my father’s passing, so he and the book and his tools are forefront in my thoughts today. When I first started shooting for this project, I wanted to quickly produce something so he could see what I was doing and thinking and planning. He was pretty sick and I wasn’t sure if he’d ever see the finished product. I sat with him and took notes right on the pages of the book. At one point I got a phone call, so I handed the book to him and said “keep going, I have to take this.” The ballpoint pen is his writing. I miss you, dad.

05/10/2021

Sometimes when you’re poking around in a shop you find a nice surprise, like I did when I discovered what looked like a sawdust-encrusted sock and turned out to have a beautiful bronze plane inside.
Swipe 👈 for settings, which are the same for both images.
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05/08/2021

I’ve mentioned elsewhere that’s my grandfather, as one of his last gigs in the business, worked in the sewing loft for CBS Television in a shop that was just closed in 2019. He sewed a bunch of cases and “wallets” for drill bits and small tools. He also dated almost everything he ever made, so I know that this was made over 45 years ago. I find it kind of mindblowing....

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05/06/2021

Two views of a gorgeous Barrel B**g Auger. Swipe 👈 for details and to see just how long I’ve been shooting these tools...........

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Address

New York, NY

Telephone

+16464831137

Website

http://imseangallagher.com/

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