It’s been 10 years since George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film has conducted public workshops on photographic processes. Reintroducing these are rare workshops using the earliest techniques of creating light-based imagery. Participants will use the same techniques and chemicals used by the original inventors and celebrate the state of photography as introduced in 1839. The workshop, titled “1839”, will feature Daguerre’s original process, Bayard’s direct positive paper process, Hercules Florence’s ammonia fixed silver-chloride prints and Talbot’s photogenic drawings, all being shot in the formal gardens at George Eastman House.

This daguerreotype component will feature the process as invented, not the improved techniques – No bromine, gold chloride or even polishing buffs here (only circular pattern polishing). Participants will make a printed-out daguerreotype and then a mercury developed out daguerreotype.

Says Mark Osterman, photographic process historian at the Eastman House:

“Its really the comparison of the three processes that makes this workshop a unique experience, few have ever seen any of these processes, let alone all of them. We’ll display the early daguerreotype equipment in the collection as well as 1839 daguerreotype plates taken in Mexico City to show how to identify the earliest examples of the process.”

1839 – July 19, 2010 through July 22, 2010 at George Eastman House.
For more information or to register, contact Stacey VanDenburgh at (585) 271-3361 ext. 323 or by e-mail at svandenburgh@geh.org.
website link : eastmanhouse.org