In the heyday of the 1970’s daguerreotype revival a gathering of contemporary daguerreotypists occurred on Staten Island, New York. Its aim was to share experiences of coming to terms with the process, to further the state of the art. A written account of the meeting provides insight into the trials of being a modern daguerroetypist and so we have added this to a new section – “General Writing” on the resources page.

Adding to the modern articles on the process in the resources section is an exposure guide for plates sensitized with iodine and bromine and developed with mercury. Submitted by Irving Pobboravsky, who notes that because every worker’s situation is different it should only be considered as a starting point, but it is just the sort of resource we seek to gather for the readers of this site, many thanks to Irv.
Link to pdf file : exposure guide
Additional notes from Irv:
EI = Exposure Index
EV = Exposure Value –( incident meter)
the table at the top is for an exposure index (ISO) of 0.05; the one at the bottom is for ISO 0.10.

Adding to the contemporary equipment galleries are the finely made Cameras of Ray Morgenweck. As well as the more well known camera styles, Ray offers a reproduction of the Wolcott camera which harks back to the origins of photographic portraiture and the Daguerreotype in America. Well beyond pinhole photography the no lens camera employs a 8 inch concave mirror to focus an image on the plate.