Eric Mertens’ gallery show at Kuhl Frames in Oakland, California is holding an opening event tomorrow May 1st from 6-9 pm. There will be music, an opportunity to meet the artist, and a chance to see some great daguerreotypes. Eric has some thought provoking work on display and his clear technical mastery is evident as well. The gallery has done a very good job of hanging the work so that the daguerreotypes are displayed to great advantage. If you are anywhere near the San Francisco Bay area, a visit will be well worth the trip.

Those that attended last years Daguerreian society symposium may have got the chance to look in detail at Marinus Ortelee’s version of the Daguerreotype process, the Orleotype or ante-daguerreotypes as he also calls it.

Similar to Daguerre’s initial version of the process the images are printed out rather than being a mercury developed latent image. Another additional feature to the standard approach to the process is the use of a third halogen, chlorine, which Marinus has mastered to give the warm brown tones. Otherwise aspects of the process are the same – the silver plate (which he electroplates himself) being highly polished (flawless in his case) is exposed to Iodine and bromine. They are in camera originals with a long exposure time (e.g. full sunlight at F2.8 for 20 minutes). He presents them in frames with his own hand painted passe partout.


  

June 15th has been set as the cut off date for submissions to the international contemporary daguerreotypes exhibit in Bry sur Marne. For consideration to be included on the exhibition poster the deadline for that has been extended to May the 14th. So if you haven’t notified the Daguerre association with you entries send in the the form to the president Marc Kereun (marc.kereun@wanadoo.fr).
With the number of exhibitors nearing twenty it looks set to be a great event, more details about it coming soon.

More have been added to the growing list of exhibitors which is most pleasing. The Daguerre association president Marc Kereun has also expressed that he hopes all living daguerreians will submit plates for the exhibit – “even if the dags have been made 40 or 50 years ago..” So if you know where the likes of Gerald Meegan and other long lost Daguerreians are alert them to the occasion.

The list of exhibitors now stands at 12 and a deadline has been set for submitting images for the selection to be included on the poster – April 29th. Said poster will be posted here once finalised.

Below is the church of Bry-sur-Marne which where in 1842 Daguerre painted the diorama (35 m²) that is now the only one by him still extant. The extension of the church with skylights in the top was built to house it and at Daguerre’s direction. It is visible in the full plate view he took from his house not far from the church and which is now in the collection of SFP (Societé française de photographie).

The “Hôtel de Malestroit” is next door (on the left of the image) and will house the exhibition 170 years since the announcement to the world of the process.

Two new images from Rob McElroy are posted in his gallery, a recent 4×5″ nude and a still life which was essentially a test to see how the camera and lens would perform when looking directly into the sun.
In sending them in Rob remarked about the rise in the interest in the daguerreotype process that seems to be happening and credited cdags.org with spurring it on – we hope so, many thanks Rob.

At a time when President Obama is extending a hand of friendship to Latin America, Cdags.org has its first artist gallery from that part of the world. Carlos Dario Albornoz is based in Argentina and is a prolific producer of Daguerreotypes. In his own words;

“Working in this art it has made me know a wide range of ways for capturing an image and then making the final copy… I believe that the technique is liberating. The expressiveness can be found in the combination of the technique and the creativeness; that is why going deeper into the technique frees me and makes possible every take, knowing beforehand the possibilities that each material, each artifact, each process offers me.”

The whole, half and quarter plate cameras of the Century Darkroom have been added to the technology galleries, thanks to Mike for the insight into his studio.

Adding to the collectors’ gallery and looking very vintage is a copy daguerreotype from 1941 by Ray Phillips and a stereo image by David Burder of Lacock village where Daguerre’s contemporary, WHF Talbot, resided.