Further distinguishing our modern articles resource is the seminal 1971 study of iodized plates by Irving Pobboravsky. When initially asked if we could add it to this site, Irv pointed out, with Herschel-like humility, that it was not a how-to-do-it manual but a scientific study, and it “would bore the hell out of most daguerreotypists”. He said also that “it would need to include a disclaimer saying that the author was not responsible if the reader fell asleep and somehow hit his head when falling to the floor.”

Far from causing such a response, it joins the other fine modern articles in the resources section that widen our angle of view on the genre.

The Daguerreotypes of Walter Johnson also grace our new look galleries section of the website. Walter recalls his life long love of Daguerreotypy:

“I had started to work on making “Dags” the fall of 1969 using damaged 9th plates from my collection. I made an fuming box from discarded parts and pieces, and used a 6X9 format plate camera for my first efforts. My frist “Dag” was made late OCT. or early Nov, of the front of the arts building, [Hayes Hall], on the OSU oval. I don’t have a clue as to where that image is today, and wish now that I had taken better care of my early efforts.
 
It was after I had received my set of custom “Dag” tools made for me by Jim Ambrecht, [he made three sets of tools, one set for Marvin Kresman, one for himself, and the third for me], that I was able to improve te quality of my images. I would work every wekend that the weather permitted and before long I could with some certainly predict results. My History of Photography class, [502], was doing quite well and I wanted to include a live “Dag” demo in the classroom and thought that the best way was to have a guest speaker to do it. The day of my demo, I said the our guest speaker was “Prof. Simon Alexander Wooley”; I then turned my back to the class and put on the long tail black coat,a bow tie, and the beaver top hat, then turned to the class and announced that I was now Prof. Simon Alexander Wooley, [read the full story in The Daguerreian Society Newsletter, Sept-Oct 2006]. After that first demostration made by my “DAG” guest, I could be certain that every “Dag” demo would insure a full classroom.
 
It was not long after my classroom demos that several of the advanced photo students came to me and asked that I conduct a class to teach them the 19th century photographic processes with a strong emphasis placed on the Daguerreotype and Wet-plate processes. I believe that this may have been the first college credit class offerimg instruction in the 19th century photographic processes in America.
 
While I do continue to work at making “Dags” yet today, and have constructed two cameras just for that task with high speed lenses to shorten the exposures. With “Dags” there is a certain pleasure that come over me in having an acceptable image, and quickly forget the effort that was required. I’m also very pleased to know of the many “Dag” makers active today, and hope that there will always be those few photographers who fine true pleasure in continuing to work with the most historic photographic process.
 
Walter Johnson”

Before the age of the internet (enabling communities like this one to bloom), hand-crafted publications featured in the photographica landscape. One of these, with its place in modern daguerreian history, was Walter Johnson’s New Daguerreian Journal (1971-75). “The publication of the journal was instrumental to my knowledge of the Daguerreotype process and the tools used,” reminisces Walter – and so it is for us today as we pool our knowledge here on this site. Still the wellspring of information, the NDJ backs the notion that since the daguerreian period there has always been someone, somewhere working away on the process. All the issues are now available as searchable pdfs in the resources section of this site.

Adding to Jerry Spagnoli’s gallery is a view of Obama’s inauguration. While the view of Obama is small, the image itself looms large, congratulations Jerry!

An opportunity for a gathering of Daguerreotypists and/or a Exhibition of contemporary daguerreotypes in the Daguerre’s town of Bry sur Marne presents itself on this the 170th year since the annoucement of the process.

Marc Kereun, president of the Daguerre Association of France has responded to the concept (see below) and we would like to hear your thoughts on it.

Even if you could not make the journey, would you be willing to submit Daguerreotype(s) for exhibiting in Bry?

The third week of September sounds like a good aim as it gives time for everyone to prepare for a trip or to ready material for an exhibition.

For those Daguerreotypists that do attend the opportunity presents itself here to organise a set up for producing Daguerreotypes at the event. Another idea is that workshops could be offered by those that do this on a regular basis.

Comments can be left here or in the Dagforum topic
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From Marc Kereun;
“The celebration of the annoucement of the daguerreotype process is a good opportunity to our Association “Louis Daguerre, le magicien de l’image” to remind of the genius of Daguerre, 170 years after. In 2001, we had contributed to the organization of exhibition on the work of Daguerre, on the occasion of the 150th birthday of its death in Bry.

Then, an exhibition of contemporary daguerreotypes gathering daguerreotypists authors in Bry would be a great event in the photographic agenda 2009.

The Association Louis Daguerre, with the collaboration of the Commune of Bry-sur-Marne, would be happy to study with you the organization of these cultural events.

For the date, it would be interesting to couple exhibition with event : ” les Journees du patrimoine ” (at about the 3rd weekend of September) during which the persons will be able to visit the workshop of restoration of the Diorama (1842) of Daguerre in Bry.”
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Welcome to the new version of the community website for contemporary daguerreotypes. The expanded editorial team has created what we hope you will think is a great new look for the site and has chosen a simple, but evocative new name. We envisage the addition of a wiki here as a powerful new information tool to enhance the blog and the forum.

A new banner with images that automatically refresh shows enticing portions of images by daguerreians who have galleries on the site. When you click on an image it will take you straight to the gallery of the artist who created it.

The forum section has new software but all the old posts are there as are the ones in the blog. We hope you will like the clean, simple structure and the speed boost the new forum software provides.

The back-end integration of blog and forum isn’t quite complete yet, your logins are the same for both but in the interim you will have to re-enter them from blog to forum and vice versa. Eventually a single logon will access everything.

Regards

the editorial team:

Alan Bekhuis
Jon Lewis
Andy Stockton

This site now has 20 artist galleries and a link list of Daguerreotypists that stands at 50. Of course there are bound to be more practitioners out there and we are always looking to find new ones or ones we have missed. We are hoping to have as many galleries of contemporary practitioners as possible. There is also a gaggle of currently listed artists that have expressed interest in having a gallery page on the site but have yet to send in their images. Carpe diem as there are some big and exciting changes coming to the site.

We are planning on shifting both current sites to a .org website address as we fully intergrate the Dagforum and the .info blog. On the surface you probably won’t notice this when it happens as the current website addresses will have automatic redirects to the new one, though there may be some cosmetic changes to the design.

This is the end product of the initial collaboration between the two separate sites to solidify our community website intent, hence the move to a .org website address. The intergration means that the blog and forum will run on the same software so users will only need one login to comment on posts in the blog or make posts in the Forum.

A new and exciting feature being incorporated into the change is the addition of a self contained Wiki into the site using the mediawiki software. Through the wiki we hope to build a comprehensive resource to the Daguerreotype process which will incorporate the material available on the resources page and one that practioners can add too in a systematic way.

The other big change already bearing fruits is that Andy Stockton of TheDaguerreotypist.com has agreed to join Jon Lewis and myself (Alan Bekhuis) in management of the site. We all share the same enthusiasm for building a online Daguerreian community.

Making our largest artist gallery are the images of Rob McElroy. Another veteran of the process Rob too has mastered the process over many years. In his own words:

“I have been a professional photographer since 1980, and I first learned the daguerreotype process in 1997 at a George Eastman House Historic Process Workshop taught by daguerreian expert Ken Nelson. I was the first of Ken’s many students to make my own daguerreotypes using all of my own equipment, most of which I had to design and build myself.

Ken’s advanced class came the next year, and what followed was my singular pursuit, over the past 10 years, to work at achieving a level of technical perfection with the process, that would rival the daguerreian masters of the 1850s, and which would allow me to expose my own artistic vision onto the surface of the most beautiful, life-like and hauntingly mysterious photographic process ever invented, the daguerreotype.

The goal of my many years of research and experimentation has been to achieve a uniformly-polished, evenly-sensitized (from edge-to-edge) daguerreotype plate — that has a full range of tones, and is predictable and consistent from one plate to the next. I can finally say, I have reached my goal. In addition to Ken, I owe much of my inspiration and technical expertise to Irving Pobboravsky, the modern master of this most difficult of mediums. No one has advanced the knowledge and understanding of the daguerreotype more than Irv has.

I have achieved a few unique firsts with the daguerreotype process. I was the first person to expose a daguerreotype using electronic flash, and many of the images in my gallery here were produced using it. The electronic flash also allowed me to be the first person to stop-action on a daguerreotype plate; see my image of a swinging strand of pearls, frozen in mid-air. I also designed and built a candid daguerreian camera which allows me to make hand-held daguerreotypes utilizing a very fast modern lens. In addition, I have invented a new archival sealing tape for daguerreotypes which prevents air incursion into the enclosure, and which also scavenges-out any harmful atmospheric vapors that may have been trapped inside the enclosure when it was sealed. My daguerreian gallery in Buffalo, NY may be the first permanent gallery in over 100 years — to be designed and built exclusively to display daguerreotypes.

The daguerreotype is my passion, and now that it is under my control, instead of it controlling me, I will be making many new and exciting images that are not only mysterious and beautiful, but that also challenge the limits of the process, producing tones, contrasts and reflections that other processes can’t even hope to achieve.”

Following on from the exhibition annoucement is the addition of an artist gallery for Binh Danh with a selection of 9 images by Binh.

“Binh Danh was born in Viet Nam and immigrated to the United States in 1980. After acquiring a BFA in photography at San Jose State University, Binh Danh received an MFA in studio art at Stanford University in 2004. Binh Danh’s work is in the permanent collections of Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; M.H. de Young Museum, San Francisco; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College,
Chicago; Rochester Memorial Art Gallery, New York; and Philadelphia Museum of Art.”