The Daguerreotype: Contemporary work by Jonathan Danforth

Photographer and podcaster Craig Tanner recently relayed an inspiring story in The Radiant Vista podcast. In The Power of Play (4/16/2007), Craig tells us about an experience he shared during a workshop he conducted in Death Valley National Park. Craig led workshop participants out on an expedition to photograph the beautiful landscape during that twilight witching hour where the sun illuminates with rich, pink light and the full moon is visible. While waiting for the light, two participants broke out kites and soon had the entire assembled group engaged in their activity.

Craig’s account places heavy emphasis on the physical changes that occur in the brain during playful activity. The brainwave state that we reach during fully-engaged playful activity where we have no other goal except to have fun is likened to the condition many athletes describe as “the zone”.

To be in The Zone is to be fully immersed in your activity: “a sense of effortless action” (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi). This state of being is extremely beneficial to an artist’s work. Photography is such a technically demanding form of art that many people confuse the process and the product. Examples of this class of photographer can be found in the lomography and holga groups.

Because mine is such a rare activity, my own daguerreotype work is often described first as a process and second as art. I don’t have a problem with this because buyers have different motivations but it’s far less important while I actually make the work.

Craig’s twenty seven minute oration is worthy of the download. The file is an MP3 and you shouldn’t have any problem listening to it on any modern computer.

Now go fly a kite.

-Jonathan

Artist Chuck Close was recently interviewed in a tiny piece by Leo Benedictus for Guardian Unlimited regarding his series of Daguerreotype portraits entitled A Couple of Ways of Doing Something. The article isn’t much on substance and is even less on length but there are a few gems:

I’m not interested in daguerreotypes because it’s an antiquarian process; I like them because, from my point of view, photography never got any better than it was in 1840.

Well said.
Chuck Close’s name has been making the rounds lately after the news that prints from one of his daguerreotype portraits will be auctioned off in an upcoming event at Christie’s King Street location. The auction, sale number 7393, will include six prints of his 2003 nude study of supermodel Kate Moss.