© Rob McElroy 2011 All Rights Reserved.

The 2011 Daguerreian Society Symposium was held in St. Petersburg, Florida on October 27-29.

One highlight was an informal gathering in the hospitality suite where Christopher Mahoney, of Sotheby’s auction house, met with artists who use the process and reviewed their work. Christopher was one of the speakers at this year’s symposium and was enthusiastic about meeting new members and learning about what was going in the world of daguerreotypes. Below are some images of Christopher talking with members of the society about the current trends for contemporary photography in auctions. At the moment, contemporary daguerreotypes are not of commercial interest. However, with artists such as Adam Fuss and the collaboration of Chuck Close and Jerry Spagnoli changing the way contemporary work is being perceived, there is hope that in the future they will be of stronger interest in the collecting world.

Another noteworthy moment was a talk given by Walter Johnson,who helped revive the process in the late 1960s-early 1970s. He shared with us the story of how he got into photography and ultimately daguerreotypes. Over the years, he led many workshops and taught the process to students at Ohio State University. He talked about the many trials and errors of the process and about handling the chemicals prior to any use of a fume hood.

The symposium ended with a big announcement for the 2013 location. 2013 will mark the 25^th anniversary of the Daguerreian society, so what better way to celebrate than to hold the symposium in Daguerre’s hometown of Bry-Sur-Marne. Stay tuned for more announcements regarding this event. In case anyone is wondering, the 2012 symposium is going to take place in Baltimore, Md.

To view more photos from St. Petersburg, click here.

Ten new images have been added to my gallery of my first national exhibit in New Zealand. On at the NZ Portrait Gallery till February the images are available through my dealer gallery.
The exhibit is portraits of members of the local Maori tribe where I live and is called “Reflecting Mana”, Mana being the Maori term for pride/dignity.

Beniamino Terraneo has an exhibit up through November 26th in the northern Italian city of Brescia. Here is the announcement with images from the show.

Welcome aboard to Jillian Pichocki shown here (center) at the recent Daguerreian Society meeting with Jane Aspinwall from the Nelson-Aitkins Museum of Art and contemporary daguerreotypist Eric Mertens. From the Washington DC area, Jillian will be our american east coast representative and expands cdags.org management to four administrators.

Four new plates have been added to Dominique Genty’s gallery including this solarization laden garden

An orignial innovation to housing daguerriean plate packages can be seen in the new technology gallery for “New Alchemy” cases. One of the rails has a detachable section for inserting the plate package and it is held in place by rare earth magnets, as is the closure of the case. These are brainchild of Daniel Kuczynski and he writes;

“I am introducing a line of Contemporary Daguerreotype cases for my own work as well as a limited number for sale. They are masterfully crafted out of the finest woods. All have solid Ebony rails which retain the image package with a hidden rail and 2 rare earth magnets. The cases come in Spalted Maple, Book-matched Koa and Macassar Ebony. I have quarter plate ($300.00) and 4X5 available ($325.00) each.”

More new images join the artist galleries page, these plates from Daniel Kuczynski who now has a gallery page. Showing how knowledge is passed on with the genre Daniel writes;
“I have begun my journey in creating Contemporary Daguerreotypes with the kind assistance of Casey Waters and from a workshop at the Eastman House under the fine tutelage of Mike Robinson and Mark Osterman. It was an amazing week with all participants making some fine images, the energy and creativity was palpable”

A artist gallery for a French/Spanish collective of artists has been added to the site. They have been making well executed 8×10 inch becquerel daguerreotypes that show there is power in numbers;
“We are french photographers and also profesor of photography in Paris during 15 years ( Helene teached photography in several schools in Paris : Speos, Les Gobelins and Le Cube).
We came to dag because one day we asked ourselves :”Can we make dags nowadays?” It was in 2009 and fortunally we found the Bry Sur Marne Exhibition where we met Marc Kereun and participed to his workshop. We began first with Mercury but in a flat it is not safe, so we begin to practice Becquerel. We posted in your forum and Bailun contacted us directly and gave us some good tricks for bdag. Now we live and work in Spain.
Simone Choulle ( for Helene Vedrenne and Nina Zaragoza)”