Chi: the circulating life energy that in Chinese philosophy is thought to be inherent in all things

Macabre: dwelling on the gruesome, tending to produce horror in a beholder

Chimacabres come out at night.  They are around during the day too of course, but the night is when they really thrive.  In the dark it’s harder to tell if you’re face to face with a fellow person, or if it’s a chimacabre in front of you, and they don’t even have faces.  No, they are vicious, purely instinctual, unforgiving. They read you with the speed of a car commercial disclaimer, immediately sniff out the soft spot, and burrow in mercilessly.  Once under their spell, escape is a struggle, as they are as alluring as dangerous. They vary greatly in their ranks.  Some feed often, while others only need one hit to fulfill their life purpose.  Some may leave you in shambles just minutes upon encounter, while others plant pernicious seedlings, which will erode your foundation decades later.  It takes a while to build up immunity to chimacabres, and one is never fully safe, as they keep evolving and following trends.

            These gruesome creatures are actually our own off-shoot.  Through eons, their essence has been shaped by the foul sludgy runoff from the continuous spiritual distillation of humanity.  Our communal subliminal fears and basic desires, refined, enlarged, and reinforced by existential self-perpetuation, remain their favorite delicacies. 

Although chimacabres evolved alongside human species in such a way as to be visually indistinguishable with the naked eye, by pure chance, I discovered that spectral sensitivity of daguerreotype technique, when combined with special lighting, allows for photographic capture of their inner core.  Presented here are five 4x5in plates of first clear specimens I was able to portray.  I hope to find and succeed in capturing more in the future.

I strongly believe that these images represent the first time ever that daguerreotype technique has been combined with light painting.

Thank You,
Anton

		Cicada photogram
Leesvillle Dam	Chicago Skyline	“The Bean”

I’ve admired the daguerreotype process for quite some time now, though the idea to “take the plunge” was always a bit out of the question.  The plates and equipment tend to be fairly expensive, and working with the chemicals involved can be daunting.  After reading about making daguerreotypes on glass, as well as the vague idea that iodine tincture could be used instead of iodine, I figured I’d bite the bullet and see how far I could get.  Somewhat to my disbelief, with some silvered glass set on a soy sauce dish full of tincture, I was able to see the plate go through 1st and 2nd cycle colors!

First success

I won’t pretend that I don’t have a lot more to learn, but I’ve come a long way in the last year, and wanted to share what I’ve learned with others interested in daguerreotypes.  I hope that this guide helps make it it easier for people to “get their hands dirty” with the process, and start making daguerreotypes for themselves.  The guide can be found here and as a link on the resources page.  As always, don’t hesitate to get in touch with me if you have any questions, concerns or comments.  Enjoy!

Joining the CDags community is Daniel Carrillo. Based in Seattle, WA, Daniel started off using the Becquerel process and has recently begun working with mercury. His blog documents his experiences with the medium, including moving up to shooting whole plates. Welcome, Daniel!

Two new portraits added to Dominique’s gallery include a self portrait of the artist. They were taken with a Linhof Tech.5, Zeiss Tessar 150mm F/D = 4.5, at 10 and 13
seconds and on 9x12cm plates

Contemporary photographers, Liudmila & Nelson, are a husband and wife duo that are collaborating on a new project consisting solely of daguerrotypes.

They currently reside in Cuba where Nelson is in charge of the Fototeca – the main center that exhibits photographic works. Cuba and the Cuban society are the subject matter in most of their projects. They use the medium of photography to question and depict Cuba within all its tenses (past, present and future) through which it transforms.

Click here more information on their project or visit the artists’ website.

A artist fascinated with a “new way” of creating images is Heather Oelklaus, who now has an artist gallery page at cdags.org. A participant in Takashi Arai’s workshops she has fun experimenting with both mercurial and Becquerel processes. One image was a 9 hour exposure, “I just wanted to see what a long exposure would look like”. Another was intentionally overexposed by 20 seconds in order to obtain solarisation.

A find at the recent Daguerreian society meeting has expanded the date range of Ken Nelson’s collection of post daguerreian era images. Also now in the collectors’ gallery it is a sixth-plate image on a plate manufactured in the 1850’s but the image dating from the 1890’s, signed on the paper tape seal. According to Romer (History of photography vol 1, No. 1, July 1977) and other sources, Steffens was a premier Chicago photographer who briefly revived the daguerreotype in his studio between 1890 and 1900. He used vintage plates and equipment, but apparently took advantage of electricity for his buffing wheels.

Four images from the 1970’s have been added to the Collectors’ gallery from the collection of Ken Nelson. If you own daguerreian images by other practitioners we would love to add them to the gallery to document the continuation after the 19th century daguerreian era, email them to admin@cdags.org

Fresh from France are new images added to Dominique’s gallery