Daguerreotypes of April 8th 2024 Total Solar Eclipse

  As some of you may have read in my previous post, earlier this year I did capture the fleeting moments of solar eclipse totality with both daguerreotype and wet plate mediums at once.  This having been previously unattempted, and most previous separate attempts having been done with highly specialized custom equipment, I as resigned to a fairly low level of confidence in success of my daring venture, but results did exceed expectations.  Wet plate collodion negative came out lovely, and the prints made from it can be viewed in post here.  

  Daguerreotype light sensitivity being much lower than that of collodion emulsions, my images did turn out substantially darker than what would have been achievable with much more sophisticated equipment.  I am however glad to restate that all of the six plates I prepared while in Missouri forest did indeed show an image on them, with the two I decided to keep and show here being only slightly brighter than the rest.  I believe that this quality is about maximum possible when using conventional photographic lenses and not having a tracking mechanism attached to the camera. 

  While using my usual archival materials, I decided to seal these plates in a non-traditional manner, with round openings in the mat, with an intent of concentrating viewer's focus on the small but miraculous ghost of a most magical natural sight I am yet to behold.  The images you see below are of two 4x5in daguerreotype plates, and in real life those plates do look much better.  That's ok, as nothing will ever look as good as a live daguerreotype anyway. 

Anton