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.

Submissions so far for the exhibit in Bry are in the left hand column of this page, some of the images submitted are posted in the thread in the dagforum;

If you would like to be in for a chance to be on the exhibiton poster don’t delay as it will finalised soon. Also I posted the submission form as a non editable pdf (my bad) here is the amended form and also as a word document;

Form for submission of Daguerreotypes to the Exhibition (pdf)
Form for submission of Daguerreotypes to the Exhibition (word document)

Currently the Daguerre association is the process of preparing a exhibition poster for this years exhibit. If you are planning on submitting images for the exhibition I would urge you to send Marc Kereun images of your daguerreotypes now so that your presence may heralded on the poster. Even if by the end of the year your change your selection of images you at least have the chance to be advertised in advance on the poster. Send reproduction quality scans to : marc.kereun@wanadoo.fr

Other details are emerging of the exhibit in Bry, the exhibition space is 400 m² in “Hôtel de Malestroit”. The lighting is said to be very favorable, the walls in 5 rooms are in grey colour and “directional spots anti UV in low frequence”. There are also cabinets for cased or unframed works.

It is looking likely that Jerry Spagnoli will give a workshop there on the process with Marc Kereun translating for the non english speaking participants. The Daguerre association is hoping to draw together contemporary daguerreotypists from across Europe for the event as well around the world so CDags.org is endeavouring to facilitate that.

For more details on the Event see the recently updated Daguerre association website (current events section). Also the link at the top of left hand column on this page has been updated to include all past and future posts on the event. In the dagforum there is a thread where people can post images they are submitting for the poster/exhibit or discuss the event in detail