daguerreotypes
Shortly I discovered wet plate, I discovered a Eric Martens who creates daguerreotypes out of Oakland, California. His studio, The DagLab is one of the very rare daguerreotype portrait studios in the country. His work is incredibly beautiful and shows his grasp of the the complicated craft of creating images on polished silver. At the end of February of this year, I took a class at the Eastman House in Rochester, NY. The teacher was the very accomplished and president of the Daguerreian Society. I had the chance to make three of my own daguerreotypes and learned lots of valuable information.
This is a self portrait shot on the last day. I was wearing a striped shirt so Mike grabbed the table cloth and wrapped me with it.
I had the pleasure of meeting Mark Osterman who is the Process Historian at the Eastman House and was also involved with the workshop. He has a long history with old processes and has taught many current alternative process photographers working today- He taught Sally Mann how to shoot wet plate. Mark makes becquerel developed (no mercury) daguerreotypes on occasion. I took the opportunity to get Mike and Mark on daguerreotype because it was a rare occurrence to get two daguerreians on the same plate.
Here is the my first dagguerreotype ever! It is of Mike
Along with the hands on workshop, we had the opportunity to view some of the very first and some of the finest daguerreotypes ever made. The Eastman House is not only a Museum but a place where conservation and proper storage of priceless photography is carried out. We also got to look at some of the early cameras and equipment.
