As you may have noticed, we have a new site contributor at CDags.org. Please welcome Anton Orlov to the community!

Anton was born in Moscow, Russia and in his early years began developing and printing his own black and white film. In the mid-nineties he and his family moved to San Diego, CA where he attended college to study chemistry. He soon realized his love for photography and switched majors and earned a BFA from San Jose State University in photography.

In 2013 he learned wet plate collodion and has been perfecting his technique since. Daguerreotypes were always intriguing to him and he was inspired to learn the process. Last year he began working with the becquerel method and has recently transitioned into using mercury after seeing the difference in plate quality. He has been busy creating new images and we look forward to seeing future posts from him about his journey with the process.

Welcome, Anton!

Daguerreotypes, being image objects, are not always completely represented by still image reproductions. Short video’s are a great medium for showing how a plate looks being tilted to different light and reflections in the hand.
I have compiled a gallery of videos found on youtube and vimeo, of plates , but also ones showing the process, exhibitions and equipment used. If I’ve missed any or when you publish more, let me know and I will add them to the page.
The link to the gallery can be found in the quick links in the left hand column of this page.

Thank you to all who have participated in sending me images for Robert’s gallery page.  Along with the images, we received great comments about how much people enjoy using this equipment. If anyone else has images they wish to contribute we are still accepting images and will view this as an ongoing effort.

Below are some of the sketches we received from Mike Robinson that show the design of the Bob’s mercury pot.

We’ve received a special request from our good friend and master of contemporary daguerreotypes Mike Robinson:

My dear friend and brother-in-law is fighting a very serious illness.  I would like to call on the CDags community to submit images to a gallery page dedicated to him.  Anyone is welcome to submit images, provided they were made in part with daguerreian apparatus built by Bob Warren (Blackshadow Yachts).   

Oscar Colorado is a professor of advanced photography at the Universidad Panamericana in Mexico City. He has created his first two daguerreotypes which have been added to his new gallery page.  You can read about the process on his blog (click for Spanish or English translation).

He would also like to announce the formation of the Mexican Society of Daguerreotype (Sociedad Mexicana de Daguerrotipo).  Information on this group can be found on their website. Below is a video from one of their workshops.

            

There is a new member in the CDags community. Claudio Santambrogio joins us from Italy and has a new gallery page of his most recent daguerreotypes. Welcome, Claudio!

A gallery page has been added for the talented Lukas Fritz, a 19 year old student from Munich, Germany. He has been making daguerreotypes for just a year with most of that time spent building the equipment (fuming boxes, mercury pot). Lukas is no stranger to demanding technical projects, as one of his websites shows (check his cocktail making machine!).

Rare finds in recent years of of caches early daguerreotypes caught the imagination of Imanol and the first images in his new cdags gallery tell a fictional story of a rediscovery of works from a French daguerreotypist’s time in Spain. The concept of rediscovery that Imanol relates is one that will strike a chord with many daguerreotypists, to find modern day inspiration in a 19th century process.

CDags.org is pleased to welcome Dafna Gazit, of Israel, to the site.  With 18 years of experience working with different photographic mediums, she has recently been learning the daguerreotype process through online resources such as this site.  She currently has 32 daguerreotypes on display in a solo show at the Alfred Gallery of contemporary art in Tel Aviv, Israel. The show will be up until September 28, 2012.