Re: Daguerreotypes

Etienne,

I am glad that you pointed that out.
Too often, beginners are intimidated un-necessarily.

There are many rooms in this house of alternative photography.
A Winchester house at that.

-Phillip

Etienne Garbaux wrote:

> Bob wrote (snipped)
>
> > In my opinion, the look of a Becquerrel plate is luike [unlike?] that of
> >a mercury
> > plate. It has its own beauty but not like that of a mercury plate.
>
> Agreed. I've never done Becquerel development myself, but the examples I've
> seen both from the 19th C and recent never display the full tonal range the
> mercury process does, and the character of the deposited image particles is
> different.
>
> > I did a lot af alternative processes before daguerreotype. I learned
> > them all on my own but I realized tat this could not be done in the case of
> > the daguerreotype. You have to have a master daguerreotypist standing there
> > with you, looking over your shoulder.
>
> Here I do not agree with Bob. I taught myself using just the old texts,
> and it is really not very difficult if you have the patience to polish
> copper plates to a Hubble-mirror-quality finish. With all of the recent
> attention and available process information, particularly including Bob's,
> I don't see why anyone would need personal instruction to make good dags.
> I also didn't find it all that expensive, although I was definitely more of
> a cowboy about dealing with the hazards than Bob, except as they relate
> directly to personal protection (and for this reason I will not elaborate
> on method further, so as not to encourage bad environmental habits). You
> do not need to buy all of the expensive equipment that Bob uses just to
> make good dags -- that is mostly to control the mercury and halogen vapors;
> any number of homemade solutions will work, particularly if your concern is
> more personal safety than environmental correctness. (This is not to say
> you shouldn't use this equipment if you can afford it, and Bob gives good
> justification for doing so on his web site.)
>
> Best regards,
>
> etienne
Received on Sat Aug 21 17:05:23 2004