The Daguerreotype: Contemporary work by Jonathan Danforth

Here are my answers to some recent questions that have rolled into my inbox this week.

what kind of tape do you use to seal the photos?

Permacel’s J-Lar Tape from Talas. Jerry Spagnoli also suggested to me back in 2004 that using Filmoplast P90 would be fine; I don’t know if he still agrees. I choose not to use P90 because it is permeable and J-LAR is an impenetrable mastic fortress. For what it’s worth, P90 is probably the closest you’ll come to the original paper tape used in the 19th century. The advantage of P90 is that it is archival and reversible though J-LAR is acid-free. J-LAR has also been endorsed by daguerreotype conservators that are a whole lot smarter than me at the Library of Congress.

do you just take a regular piece of glass and place it over the top of it when its done?

You need to put some sort of mat (even construction paper would do) between the plate and the glass. I use museum glass (AKA “water white”) from the local frame shop. I use brass mats that I have made at a emachineshop.com.

where do you get your gold chloride?

Photographer’s Formulary. You want the solid AuCl3. 1 gram will let you do 20 or so 4×5 plates.

is sodium thiosulfate just fixer?

Not sure. It’s cheap though.

what temperature does the blow torch you use go to?

I use a Bernzomatic propane cylinder (blue) to drive a simple torch. The flame temperature in air is 3,450F. The original daguerreotypists used alcohol lamps to do it though. You need to keep the flame constantly moving so that you don’t get hotspots. Some modern daguerreotypists use a hotplate and a frying pan (see “View Camera” November/December 2004). I like the idea because it provides an even distribution of heat but I’ve never tried it. I seem to remember Jerry Spagnoli using a torch fueled by a Bernzomatic oxygen cylinder (red) that burns far hotter than my propane torch. If you want to split the difference, use a MAPP cylinder (yellow).

How do you check if your picture is developing when the amberlith is covering it?

You’ll see the image through the Amberlith after a few minutes (see picture to the right). A good exposure will start to show in about 10-15 minutes. Highlights come first and the rest of the image develops out over the course of 2-3 hours.

my teacher said that it would cost like 40 dollars for a silver plated piece of copper, and i was wondering how much you pay for it when you get it done.

The plate is about $5-10 and the plating is about $10-15. There’s a lot of time involved though so that’s worth something too. I’d happily pay someone $30 for pre-made plates if I could find somebody reliable. $40 is not unreasonable for a ready-made plate.

If you wouldn’t mind telling me, what is the approximate cost to you for an electroplated half plate?

Copper plate (4×5″): ~$5
Silver plating (4×5″): ~$11

I buy copper from onlinemetals.com. I polish the copper plate to a mirror finish and then take it to the plater. Then I polish the silver again! Fortunately I have a local silver plater to whom I can drive. I charge something like $40 for a 4×5″ plate because of the amount of labor involved.

I recently received this e-mail from ‘Greg’:

I was wondering if you could elaberate [sic] on the process of contact printing. that is taking a photograph and printing it on transparent paper and some how making it into a dag. i want to do a self portrait and i think thats the only way i can do it is if the picture is already taken and i reproduce it on a dag. thanks

Here is my response concerning my method of making contact prints using modern methods.

Making a contact-print daguerreotype is little different from making a contact print in the darkroom using traditional processes. Other “alternative processes” viz. Platinum, Palladium, AZO, etc. use enlarged negatives. The chief difference in daguerreotypes is that it is a direct-positive format so we need an enlarged positive instead.

There are two methods for making an enlarged positive: wet and dry.

In a traditional, “wet” darkroom, you would place your film negative in the enlarger and expose onto a fine-grain interpositive film such as Arista Litho. This material works in a similar fashion to B&W VC paper and yields a direct positive transparency. Use contrast filters to lower the contrast to match that of a Becquerel daguerreotype.

The dry method is best described by Dan Burkholder in his groundbreaking 1995 study Making Digital Negatives for Contact Printing (Book & Disk)

“A digital negative is like any other negative except that it’s made using the computer instead of by using wet chemistry in the darkroom. The two common types of digital negatives are imagesetter negs produced by sending a file to a ’service bureau’ and inkjet negs made using a desktop printer. Recently the term ‘digital negative’ has been used to describe a type of digital capture file. Don’t be confused. We can actually take our real live digital negatives into the darkroom!”

Despite Dan’s intent for making digital negatives, it is perfectly acceptable to chop off the last step and create a digital positive instead.

You will need:
1. A photo printer (I use an Epson R2400)
2. A supply of Pictorico OHP or Ultra Premium OHP Transparency Film
3. Photoshop or other photo editing software
4. Contact Printing Frame
5. Daguerreotype-making stuff/skills

Open your source image in Photoshop and take a look at the curves. Adjust your curves to reduce the contrast a smidge. Experimentation is key here. Remember that daguerreotypes are orthochromatic (insensitive to red) so anything that’s warmer than green/yellow will be quite dark. You may want to desaturate your reds using the channel mixer in order to give them some greater definition in the final product. Dan has elaborate pre-conceived curves for platinum, palladium, etc and a lot of science to back them up but there’s nothing out there for daguerreotypes as far as I know.

Plenty more after the break:

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Our art is 169 years old as of January 7th.  It was on that day in 1839 that La Gazette de France announced to the world the process we know today as the Daguerreotype.  The article “declared the ‘invention’ to be so significant that it ‘upsets all scientific theories on light and optics, and it will revolutionize the art of drawing.’”(1)  See my About Dags page to learn more about the daguerreotype.

Happy birthday and remember… “from this day, painting is dead.” (attrib.)
Jon

1 Clark, Graham. The Photograph. New York: Oxford UP, 1997.

Attentive readers to the journal will know about my affinity for the Clock of The Long Now project. Being a card-carrying member of the Long Now Foundation I am constantly thinking in the long-term. Art in the long term, therefore, is important to me.

Paleoanthropology is, sadly, imprecise when it comes to the lifestyle of ancient humans/hominids. All of our beliefs about the humanity of our distant ancestors is myth at worst and theory at best therefore it worries me what our 10,000 year descendants will think of us. And to think I was recently accused of caring too much what other people think about me…

But I digress.

I asked the venerable Dan Rutter of Dan’s Data a question about an ultra-long-term storage tank that I’d like to build for daguerreotypes.

Dan,

Suppose I wanted to maintain a vacuum in a standard bell-jar / vacuum plate setup for around 10 millenia (give or take) without interruption or maintenance? What, other than “comical,” would be my options?

These thoughts occur:

Short-term thinking would assume an electric vacuum pump but I’m assuming that is preposterous due to the mechanical degradation of the components. Powering the electric device bumps into the same hurdles: solar and wind are out due to mechanical degradation, right? What about radioactivity? Is there any reasonably sized undeadly hunk of radioactive ore that could be used to provide electric power to the pump while simultaneously requiring zero maintenance?

Maybe I could even use the heat from a radioactive source to more directly drive a steam pump in a sealed engine to maintain vacuum… thoughts?

I should mention that the vacuum is only for purposes of removing contaminants from the air (most specifically sulfur) so it doesn’t need to be very strong.

Thanks!
Jon

The reply, under the header of “This boy worries me” was this. (more…)

All-

The free f295 Seminar on Contemporary Alternative Photography is coming soon! It takes place in less than 3 weeks on Sunday January 27, 2008 at the B&H Photo Megastore in Manhattan and is COMPLETELY FREE! Because we’re expecting a large crowd for this event pre-registration is required. To reserve your space please email eventspace@bhphoto.com

Here’s information from the B&H Website:

f295 Seminar on Contemporary Alternative Photography:

B&H hosts a very special and rare gathering of some of today’s leading alternative process photographers for a one day event of epic proportions. We’ve packed as much as we can into this 6 hour event! You’ll hear presentations from each photographer about their work, engage in discussion around alternative photographic practice, and participate in a dialogue about the state of contemporary alternative photography.

Speakers Include:

* Craig Barber

* Laura Blacklow

* Martha Casanave

* Jill Enfield

* Jesseca Ferguson

* Scott McMahon

* Erin Malone

* Tom Persinger

* Keliy Anderson-Staley

* Jerry Spagnoli

This event is not to be missed by anyone interested in; alternative process (from albumen to ziatype), pinhole, zone-plate, toy camera (Holga and Diana), and self-made cameras! B&H Event Space will be hard pressed to contain the amount of creative energy that will be present on this day.

Registration is required for this event and seating is limited! Please reserve your seat and be sure to arrive promptly to guarantee your spot. For registration please send an email to: eventspace@bhphoto.com

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Please Note: This event is pre-cursor to the F295 Symposium 2008: An Examination of Lensless, Alternative and Adaptive Photographic Processes held in Pittsburgh, PA. 5/29/08 to 6/1/08. The f295 Symposium is a unique and exciting three day event which features exhibitions, lectures and round-table discussions, workshops, and peer networking focused around an in-depth exploration of alternative photographic processes and means. f295 is working with the Center for the Arts in Society at Carnegie Mellon University and Pittsburgh Filmmakers to bring you a host of exciting events! Complete information, including registration information, available on the website: http://www.f295.org/symposium2008/

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