After some friendly goading from my closest dagurreian friends, I went out to the castle tonight to get some more hands-on practice with polishing. I’m sticking to bare copper plates still, since I don’t feel ready to tackle silver yet. True to my friend’s advice, I began to learn a few things that I didn’t read about in books – and confirmed a few that I had.
Fact 1 – Flat metal plates are not actually flat. Read more »
Daguerreotype Process | andy | February 23, 2009 | 
Comments (3)
acrylic, alumina, castle, copper, daguerreotype, daguerreotype process, iodine, micron, Plate preparation, Plates, polishing
No this isn’t a daguerreotype. I wish it was. Really I do. It is however the best of the test photos that I took today. I am happy to report that my bargain basement lens is able to produce an image. Yay! Unfortunately as I suspected, it is pretty limited when used wide open. This particular image was produced using a hand made f-stop with an opening about the size of a dime. If I am doing the math right that makes for an f-stop of a little over 8. Pretty slow in the world of daguerreotypes. The rest of the pictures I took can be seen here. Wide open is pretty fuzzy. Exposure is all over the map since my shutter is a lens cap. I certainly have forgotten some of the refinements of wet chemistry (as you can see), but it was starting to come back to me after a few tries. I also had the fun of using an 8×10 camera for the first time ever. Hard to keep everything adjusted right and get those film holders to seat in place. More challenges – er opportunities. :)
I also cured the light leak in my fan exhaust. Pictures of that here.
All in all a fruitful day.
Daguerreotype Process | andy | February 1, 2009 | Comments (5)
8x10, camera, castle, charcoal filter, daguerreotype, daguerreotype process, fan, fume hood, light leak, photography, photos
A warm and sunny day is a treat in the Bay Area in mid-winter. We are supposed to be unhappy it isn’t raining because we are likely to have drought conditions this summer, but I just couldn’t mope around properly – too many daguerreian projects were beckoning. Read more »
Daguerreotype Process | andy | January 31, 2009 | Comments Off
8x10, acrylic, activated carbon, camera, castle, Chemicals, daguerreotype, fan, father, fume hood, Goop, light leak, magnetic, sheet film, superbowl
Shorter days. less light – cold and gloom. The holidays are not always conducive to creativity. In fact I find it hard to fight off a sort of lethargy at this time of year. That is why I look for opportunities to motivate myself when I can and today I found two of them. Read more »
Yesterday I had some free time so I decided to try my hand at cutting some daguerreotype cover glasses. I plan to make my first daguerreotype attempts at sixth plate size using the Becquerel process, so I was going for 2 3/4″ by 3 1/4″ covers. I have had past experience cutting large pieces of glass for window repairs and I have not had much trouble with that, so I figured that it would be an easy project. Wrong. Read more »
