[jdanforth]

I knew that this would spark a lively discussion! I’m interested, photolytic, in trying your idea with the RO polishing. Where do you get your red and black rouge (lamp black) powders?

I’ve purchased and sifted red and black ferric oxide which has worked well for me but it’s hardly perfect.

[jdanforth]

I can see that I’ll never be forgiven for digging on your framing, John!

[jdanforth]

Alan, that image of your mother is stunning! Well done!

[jdanforth]

Alan, that image of your mother is stunning! Well done!

[jdanforth]

A friend of mine suggested that we make “Dag Camp” which would literally be a camping trip of some kind. I LOVE this idea! Thoughts?

[jdanforth]

A friend of mine suggested that we make “Dag Camp” which would literally be a camping trip of some kind. I LOVE this idea! Thoughts?

[jdanforth]

Andy_Stockton wrote:The gathering sounds like a fantastic idea. What do the airlines allow?

I have never had any trouble traveling on a plane with equipment: tripod, camera, finished daguerreotypes, unsensitized plates, and even an empty sensitizing box. I would not attempt to travel with any chemicals at all. The planning people would need to assure that there would be chemicals ready and waiting at the site.

We’ll have a pre-arranged address near the site to accept parcels containing whatever individual artists may want to have but not lug around the airport.

I like the biennial idea quite a bit.

I could possibly swing early August 2009 although I’d prefer later in the year. I have another convention to attend 8/27 through 8/31… The Miniature Book Society Conclave! Woot! http://www.mbs.org.

OK, lets talk names:
Convention
Congress
Conclave
Gathering
What-Have-You
Turnout
Assembly
Convocation
Roundtable
….?
DaguerreoTime 2008 (my favorite )

[jdanforth]

photolytic wrote:2008 must also be the first year anyone had to sprinkle sulfur on Dags to make them look older. ” title=”Razz” />

LOL. Jerry Spagnoli will probably never let me live that down!

[jdanforth]

Jon Lewis wrote:Congratulations on the honorable mention! Perhaps next year there’ll be a daguerreotype on top ” title=”Very Happy” />

Bah… forget Nikon. We should have our OWN competition. It would be cool if there were an annual alternative-process award, eh?

Congratulations on the honorable mention though!

[jdanforth]

Wow, thanks for sharing that, Eric! That’s really enlightening.

[jdanforth]

Excellent! That looks quite familiar… ” title=”Very Happy” />

[jdanforth]

TheDagLab wrote:Do you or anyone else know of a way to measure it?

My local silver-plater uses some sort of x-ray machine on my plates. I get a printout that shows the silver thickness on each of a dozen x-ray points. Very handy.

Can you make 4×5" plates?

[jdanforth]

Great points! I forgot to mention the dog-bone pattern. My plater uses the XRF to determine the thickness in the center mainly to make sure that I get the half mil that I asked for. The corners often have upwards of .75 or even 1 mil on them.

[jdanforth]

Oh, I buy the glass from the gallery. I wish they’d give it to me. That stuff is expensive!

I think that the "museum" glass is synonymous with water-white.

Jerry taught me a glass-cleaning method that you can use on regular glass but I wouldn’t use this on coated glass like the water-white.

1. carefully file the corners to round off a smidge (this prevents the tape from getting cut)
2. rinse under warm water
3. scrub with a towel and some Soft-Scrub
4. rinse thoroughly
5. dry one side immediately with a blow dryer (just like a daguerreotype plate). THIS is the side that faces the work.
6. towel-dry the other side

I’ve never cut glass. My gallery does tell me that they HATE cutting glass for me if that helps. I pay them handsomely for that silica so they better just DEAL with it.
Usually the gallery can get away with some rounded edges or quirks because the frame rabbet hides them. Not so with the d-types!

[jdanforth]

Kudos to Alan for coming up with a good name and a good location suggestion!

My thoughts on the matter are that the summit should:
– be in a different location every time spread all over the world for maximum ease of access
– access to a community sensitizing / developing facility
– at least one "scholarship" funded by the other participants to bring a person to the summit that otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend

[jdanforth]

I have my gallery cut the glass for me using their fancy schmancy museum-clear glass.

[jdanforth]

Andy_Stockton wrote:Good luck with your exhibitions and I will keep my fingers crossed about the Nikon award. That would be fantastic. Re the quiet – yesterday was the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States which may be contributing some to the silence. Many people spend time with family.

I have been making daguerreotype cases for the past 14 hours. Fun! It’s cold in my studio so I brought everything inside and I’m watching Stargate episodes on DVD. If only I could make this my full time job!

[jdanforth]

Best of luck to you in sales!

[jdanforth]

http://chestofbooks.com/arts/photograph … art-2.html

This is an interesting explanation of filtration on orthochromatic film that seems germane.

White clouds are much brighter to the eye than the blue sky, but if they are photographed on the film in the ordinary way the blue sky appears too light and the clouds are lost against it. In order to overcome this and to enable orthochromatic film to represent most of the colors in their correct tone values light filters are used which absorb the excess of blue light and prevent it from reaching the film.

These light filters are, of course, yellow in color, since yellow absorbs blue light and thus, by the use of yellow light filters, which are sometimes called color screens, the excess of blue light can be absorbed and a much improved rendering of sky and clouds can be obtained.

They say yellow but I hypothesize that the best result for getting tonally accurate dags would be a yellow-orange filter. This would help with skin complexion, the Red Barn problem, etc. That is, of course, assuming that you can live with the extra stops!

[jdanforth]

Well I ordered a yellow filter from B&H anyway. I was concerned about the loss of light but I’ll just have to deal with it. If I can possibly squeeze it in this weekend I’ll run an experiment shooting with and without the yellow filter. I’m not sure if pulling out the violet of the spectrum will be of any benefit now.

I’m interested that you tried the blue filter. That should subtract the orange from your images but at a considerable time cost. A green or a blue-green filter would ease the reds / red&orange from the image which would be of considerable benefit. Maybe I should have tried a green filter instead.

[jdanforth]

I just bought a UV A / UV B light meter from Talas. I’m going to keep metering using my Pentax digital spot meter but I’m also going to note the time, date, and UV reading to my exposure notes. Hopefully I’ll be able to use the new UV data to more accurately predict a good exposure.

[jdanforth]

Has anyone tried Zam?

I’ve found the materials from Caswell to be acceptable. I used to use Dialux which is very highly regarded but I’m not sure why I switched. Perhaps it’s time to pick up some Dialux stuff again.

[jdanforth]

I think that you’re looking at the wrong end of the spectrum. I had thought that Becquerel dags are developed not by the infrared but rather by the UV that the red film allows through. The reason why red film works is that the dags are orthochromatic so the red light doesn’t affect the image.

Red LEDs, unless they happen to output some UV by accident (and they won’t), won’t do anything for you except eventually make your plate black.

UV LEDs on the other hand…

If I’m incorrect, please correct me!

[jdanforth]

I was approached but didn’t get the job. ” title=”Sad” /> I suppose that I couldn’t get it turned around fast enough.

[jdanforth]

I have spoken with a handful of photography students that are experimenting with daguerreotypes. Many of them use UV development boxes like these: http://www.photoformulary.com

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