The Daguerreotype: Contemporary work by Jonathan Danforth

8-31-2006

Man oh man! I framed that whole-plate Daguerreotype and it’s awesome! There’s nothing like a custom-made frame to accentuate your art. I chose a rather wide black frame with a gold-leaf inner border. I haven’t seen a whole-plate Daguerreotype hanging except in a museum and now I have one in my dining room.

In other news, John Beardsworth over at Digit Magazine has published a neat little tutorial (more…)

8-25-2006

After work today, I went home and sensitized another whole-plate (6.5″ x 8.5″) daguerreotype and shot a beautiful old barn.  The new buffing procedure that I’m experimenting with seems to be increasing my plate sensitivity by a factor of a stop or more!  The downside of this is that I slightly overexposed this whole plate but I’m going to keep it for my personal collection.  Scan shortly.

-Jonathan

8-23-2006

Happy Birthday to me! I just posted a Daguerreotype tutorial over at Instructables. Go check it out!

I have two more Daguerreotypes on eBay at the moment. The starting bid is lower than the gallery price so bid early, you’re very likely to get the sale cheaper than in the gallery! Daguerreotypes up for auction on eBay.

I attempted my first whole plate Daguerreotype on Saturday with mixed results. After destroying one plate completely (don’t ask), I scored an overexposed image on the second. Try, try again.

-Jonathan

8-15-2006

I attended a class on Gold Tooling at the New York Center for Book Arts over the weekend with Gavin Dovey so I thought that I’d share a bit of information on what I learned.

If you haven’t tooled in gold before, the good news is that it’s surprisingly easy. The art requires practice and patience (more…)