Antique Photography Lovers Gather at the 2006 Daguerreian Symposium
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - Friends, practitioners, and admirers of the antique Daguerreotype photography method gathered today for the annual meeting of The Daguerreian Society in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This year’s event runs through Sunday 11/19/2006.
The Daguerreotype, named for its inventor Louis Daguerre and invented in 1839, was the first commercially successful photographic method. Being made on silver-plated pieces of copper, Daguerreotypes are unique and irreproducible images that were immediately treasured. Various descriptions of the process can be found at shinyphotos.com, newdags.com, and wikipedia.com.
Accounts vary but the Daguerreotype didn’t survive long as a practical method of photography. Like Betamax, the qualitatively superior nemesis of the VHS tape, the Daguerreotype was swiftly replaced by the less expensive tintype and, later, various other formats that allowed for the production of the paper prints that we know and love today. Despite this short-lived popularity, there has likely not been a year since 1839 where a Daguerreotype hasn’t been made somewhere by passionate weirdos aficionados like those attending The Daguerreian Symposium including, of course, yours truly.
My reasons for making Daguerreotypes vary but primarily, I’m confident that it is the most perfect photographic method ever devised. The knowledge that the plate in your hand is the actual plate that was in the room with the person or object photographed is a powerful, tangible link to the past.
If you’re in the Pittsburgh area and are interested in seeing these unique visions of years past in person, stop in at the Daguerreian Society for a look.
-Jonathan
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