Whole plate and heavenly – the Daguerreotypes of Gregory Popovitch are our new gallery. Unmistakably modern they are also mercurial in their making. A practitioner since 2003 Gregory finds “solace in creating one of a kind objects using the manual, demanding and unpredictable Daguerreotype process”.

A trained silversmith with his own hallmark is the next Daguerriean to join our gallery ranks. Brenton uses both Mercurial and Becquerel processes as well as making his own modern cases and is based in the UK.

John Hurlock has been making Daguerreotypes since 1956 and uses cold mercury development (the plates are developed in a vacuum where the mercury off gases at a high rate). Stereoscopic, botanicals, architectural and portrait images grace his website and now our galleries sections as well.

Daguerreotypes of Antarctica by Joyce Campbell are the newest additions to our gallery section. The 5×7″ plates are part of a “Last Light” series of images made in the Ross sea region in 2006.

Thank you for posting this Andy! I’m going to be moving shortly and will no longer have (much) access to a myriad of tools including a buffing machine. So this leaves me with buffing everything by hand for the moment. Perhaps it’ll give me more appreciation for a buffing machine when I get one ” title=”Wink” />

A new feature of the website is the Resources section to provide articles/manuals on Daguerreotypy as well as links and other essential textual information. We hope to grow this as online resource of renown, but it the meantime here is its humble beginnings. If you have articles or information you’d like to submit please contact the administrators – contact addresses now in the About section.

Latest to join our gallery ranks is Mike Robinson of Toronto. Mike uses the mercurial process with clad plates and as you can see in the gallery, has the process to perfection. He can also do hand coloring by applying pigments directly onto the plate with astonishing effect. Mike also teaches workshops regularly.

New to the galleries section are the Daguerreotypes of Jerry Spagnoli. Jerry’s studio in gallery district of Chelsea in New York city has played host to many famous personages (try to guess who is the celebrity hand model on his book cover) and his outdoor daguerreotypy takes him around the world. Jerry uses the mercurial process, often works in the whole plate format and teaches workshops on the process (see the events page of this site).

Recently added to the Galleries are views of equipment both modern and vintage; fuming boxes, modern meters including a uv light meter and also fume hoods. The latter gallery is in response to a discussion on the DagForum, where details are furnished of the portable fumehood.

I have been a long time fan of the Jewelers bench exchange which shows jewelry workers workspaces from all over the world, ranging from the impressive to the humble. The first two scenes on the fumehood page get both ends of that scale but it would be interesting and educational to see more, if you would like to contribute images, email them to admin(at)contemporarydaguerreotypes.info.