Contact Printing a Daguerreotype

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:

Print out your color transparency onto the OHP film and take it to the darkroom.

Place the transparency in your contact printing frame and then (in the darkroom) place the sensitized daguerreotype face-down onto the transparency. Seal up the contact printing frame by taping a cardboard cover so that you can take the frame out into the sunlight for exposure. You’ll use the cover as a shutter when you’re ready to expose.

The sunlight I use is usually in the 9-10EV range when measured with my Handy Dandy Pentax Digital Spot Meter pointed at a gray card. At this level of light the exposures are usually in the 1-8 second range depending on the density of the image. Again… experimentation is key here. If you’re especially clever and quick with your hands then you can make a stepped exposure on a single plate with multiple exposures.

No matter which method you choose remember that the Becquerel daguerreotype is a low-contrast image. At most you’ll have two-three stops of latitude in your image so adjust your contrast levels accordingly. I use the channel mixer to adjust the image to reach a contrast level that is shallow enough to keep the highlights from solarizing.

Cordially,
Jonathan