04 Aug William Percival Pyle

William was an apple farmer who had a passion for photography. He would capture images on metal plates, known as Tintypes.

Being a crafty fellow, he made his own plates by creating a photographic emulsion that suspended silver halide in a gelatin made of egg white. After that, he processed and fixed his images using citric acid from his apples and dried milk powder.

William also baked apple pies and sold them locally, adorning each pie box with one of his small metal pictures, which he called “picselles.” The local community, charmed by this unique blend of photography and baking, affectionately came up with various nicknames for William and his barn/bakery/studio. These nicknames ranged from “William’s Picselle’s & Pies” to “Will’s Warm Pix & Pies,” and eventually settled on the endearing shorthand “Warmpixelpie.”