200 Daguerreotypes In Two Months, One Silver Plate's Adventures

  Earlier this year, I've decided to restart my daguerreotype work with a new passion.  There is still so much more beauty hidden in plain sight within this noble technique, and to find and rouse that beauty is my ultimate goal.  Since the completion of the Chess Series in 2022, the only meaningful daguerreotypes I produced were the ones of the Total Solar Eclipse in Aprif of 2024. I was growing rusty, and I knew it.  So, in the last 55 days, I went into overdrive mode and made approximately 215 daguerreotype images, and below is a brief account of those activities. 

  I estimated that in oder to get my image quality back to where I would be happy with, I would have to make at least a hundred images, and quite possibly more.  This daunting perspective got me thinking foremost of the financial aspect of making that many plates.  And in fact, for the past three years, it was indeed this fiscal barrier that kept me from restarting my experiments in opalescence, and induced my prolonged break. I won't bore the reader with details of various electroplating suppliers and options one could chose with them, or with my thoughts on clad vs. plated silver, or with approximations of how many times on average one can erase a daguerreotype image upon different plates before they have to be discarded.  As of today the cost of a single 4x5in plate ranges at about US$100-130, and I will omit here a long tangent about the possibility of electroplating on your own, which in theory could save some money if not time. I figured though, that even with a very high estimate of me being able to make an erase maybe 15 images per plate (though in reality some plates are more like 3-4 times, others 7-10), it would cost me at the very least $2000-2500 to make 300 images..

  After putting my thinking cap on, I went a different way.  Instead of dealing with going through silver on plate after plate and watching $100 at a time go into the waste bin, I decided to buy a solid 99.9% silver plate.  There is an artist in China working on solid silver plates, and I did ask him for advice on this, unfortunately I never did hear back from him.  Rio Grande is the only supplier that I have found in the US that sells solid silver in sheets (great monopoly to have, eh).  They do have a very decent selection though, and much more experimenting is still possible, but for now I decided to buy what I thought would be the best strength and thickness.  It took me a while to talk myself into this expense, but the only other option was buying 200 or so plates elsewhere, only to have them all erased down to copper during my future certain trials and tribulations.

  I settled on 18 gauge (~1.02mm thick) quarter hard stock.  Unfortunately that stock comes only in 12in width, and it is cut lengthwise to order.  I bought a 12x5in strip, and paid right around $650 for it, which, after some careful cutting, gave me three 4x5in plates at just about $220 each.  I put one plate aside, and it remains still untouched, with original brushed matte finish it came with.   Upon the second plate I made a fun image that I very much enjoy, which will likely not be erased as it may end up in an upcoming exhibit, and then it would be a true shame to erase it even if it's not purchased.   The third plate however was facing my full wrath, which I unleashed with full fury.

  For once in my life I could make images and not think of the cost while erasing image after image.  It was truly liberating and addictive.  At first I set out to make one or two images per day.  After a few days though it became clear to me that I that pace was not sufficient and I upped it to a minimum of three daily.  I have not missed a day since February 28th, and several days up to nine images were made and immediately erased.  As I was going, I placed each fixed and dried image on my copy stand and quickly copied it using my phone camera.  Yesterday I added image 200 to that album, and so today is the first day in almost two months that I'm not taking a break from polishing and fuming.

  As I mentioned above, I knew things weren't gonna go smoothly as soon as I picked up the polisher again.  There are many aspects of daguerreotype practice that are not exactly like riding a bike, and so I predicted setbacks in my quest to get quality and consistency of my images to be where I wanted.  My first problem though was of such peculiar nature that it literally took me almost all of the first 100 images to narrow down and eliminate.  After that issue was gone, of course others remained, but they were slowly improved upon, and now, after 200+ plates, I'm finally feeling like my bearings are somewhat regained.    The final battle of course is the one against the army of black spots, but I will always remember what the late and truly great Irving Pobboravsky told me on this subject, that "without some spots it's not a true daguerreotype".  I'm still gonna try to keep them in check though, for Irving too. 

  After the main seemed to have been resolved, I did have some fun playing with the range of tone that daguerreotypes can yield, and below are examples of some of the images that only existed for brief moments.   Some are nothing special, while a few I did feel rather sad while erasing.  Do pardon the poor quality of these copies, they are but my reference photos of exposures and fuming variations, and are were never meant to be seen as much more than that.  The only editing done to images below was done in the standard iPhone Photos app, and was aimed at getting the picture to look as closely to what I was seeing on the plate in terms of brightness and tone. 

  All of the images in this post were not gilded before erasing.  Gilding does greatly improve the look of daguerreotypes. Addition of gold drops the shadows to that rich smooth black that defines a good plate, it also markedly raises highlight brightness.  At some point during this darkroom run, I made a very simple example for myself, which some may find informational as well.  Upon one plate with my standard studio composition you see in one of the images above, I performed the following experiment.  After fixing and drying it, I placed the plate upon the gilding stand, and poured a very small amount of gilding solution, about 5ml worth. It was only enough to make a puddle in the middle, which I proceeded to heat up in my usual manner, thus gilding only the center of the image.  Here's the result, from which you can use your imaginations, and approximately extrapolate how the other images here would have looked should they have been gilded. 

  Another avenue I embarked upon in these past two months, was trying out for myself a few of the myths and legends I've read in various places.   These tales span from 19th century, right though the 20th and into modern age.  They promise wondrous results, and so I was eager to see for myself the marvelous benefits of the findings left to us my many learned man through history, and which to this day are being espoused from the pulpit.  Alas, after spending at least a week on careful investigation, none of those promises and speculations, led to anything but frustration.  Below are a few examples of those investigations, as well as a couple random bromine and iodine quadrant tests just for fun. 

  And how is our single solid silver plate after all this use an abuse? It's just fine and dandy, thank you very much! I recall there having been at least 4-5 images that I simply forgot to copy, maybe as many that failed to such a degree that I couldn't even learn from them and so chose not to copy those, and maybe another few times when something went awry during the fuming stage, and so I had to polish off that deposit of iodides and bromides.  So all in all this one plate I was working with went through at l least 215 polish backs!  I carefully measured the untouched control plate, and found that my cutting was unusually precise, and that the still unused plate was exactly the same width and length as the one I was using.  After weighing them both, I found that after 200+ polish-backs the plate I'm working with lost only 4 grams!  Unpolished plate weighed in at 134.72g, and the used one was 130.62.  Originally my calculations were as follows.  I figured that with each polishing I must take off at least 2 micrometers worth of silver in order to get the image erased thoroughly enough for it not to come up as a ghost in the next shot. there are 1000 micrometers in 1mm, but of course you can't just erase the plate into thin air, at some point it will become so thin that it will bend.  I figured I could take my 1.02mm plate to maybe 0.6mm or if I'm lucky to 0.5mm before it's too thin to work with.  This would have given me let's say 500 micrometers to work with, so 250 images. That was my projection.  I was wrong though.  Maybe 2mic is what one needs to take off once the image has been gilded, and of all the images I made I only gilded 4-5 of them, so I'm probably erasing less than 1mic every time that I'm taking off a non-gilded shot.  Knowing that I'm missing 4g out of 134 leaves me to follow the following conclusion.  Taking the plate down from 1mm thickness to 0.9mm should reduce it's weight by 10%, which is 13.4g.  The 215 erasures I've performed only lost 4g, so I there's still over 9 grams to go, so another 500 ungilded images just to get it to to 0.9mm, and I don't intend to stop there.

  I will use this plate for all my upcoming experiments, and will see how many hundreds of images it will hold before it's no longer workable.  As the plate gets thinner and thinner, I will finally be able to see what thinner gauges of silver sheets I can get in the future and not have them be too flimsy to work with.  For now I think I'm safe in saying that if you want to try this and want to get a slightly cheaper plate, 20 gauge quarter hard silver sheet should work just fine, as it's only 0.2mm thinner, and I think it won't bend too easily.  Then again, that depends on individual polishing methods, and that's an entirely different topic. After a few day break, I'm planning to get back to using this plate over and over again, in search of something truly new and beautiful.  Once I feel I'm on the right track, I'll use my regular electroplated plates to hopefully capture some images worth keeping.  It is truly freeing though to work with a solid silver plate and to have zero worries about seeing first signs of copper peeking though every time I pick up the buffing materials.  Seems to be a reasonable thing to do.

  Onward, to new and exciting discoveries my friends!

Anton 

Wet Collodion April 8th 2024 Total Eclipse - Lithographic Gelatin Silver Final Printing

  Last April I embarked on a mission, which took me all the way to Alton, Missouri.  The goal was to see if I could capture the total solar eclipse with both daguerreotype and wet collodion mediums, while having no specialized equipment and with no assistants either.  The journey and it's fruits are described HERE, with finished daguerreotypes can be seen HERE.  Having miraculously secured a 4x5in wet collodion negative of the diamond ring moment of sun's reemergence, I chose to make two editions of prints on vintage gelatin silver paper and using lithographic developer, in order to add even more serendipity to the process.

  First printing focused solely and squarely upon the conjunction of sun and moon, centered and enlarged to almost fill the page.  It then took me some months to process what I wanted to see in the second edition.  I won't bore the reader with repeating what fun lith printing with gelatin silver paper is, as one can find that info in my post about the first round of images, but I decided to stick with that, as well as to continue using vintage photo papers like Kodak's Ektalure and Fine Art, Luminos Charcoal R, and others, but this time I only made prints in 11x14 and 16x20 format, forgoing 8x10 altogether.

  With this second and final edition, I wanted to more personally convey my experience of the eclipse and the emotions that those 3.5 minutes so strongly evoked.  I recall being awestruck at the surreal nature of what was happening, with day turning into night and colors fading before my very eyes. It seemed like reality glitched for a second, and the sky became host to a most amusing and abstract art installation, a fleeting performance by nature of it's best time sensitive installation. I was also overwhelmed by Nature that was happening all around me.  Not only were celestial bodies lined up in most peculiar and perfect ways, but I was also in the depth of a lush forest, an environment I thoroughly enjoy.  Below are some examples of 11x14 and 16x20in prints that were completed recently.  With 11x14in I decided to give a nod to Man Ray and the abstract movement of his time, with somewhat organic shapes mysteriously appearing in random manner in what is usually a clear sky.  In 16x20in images, those shapes are replaced with plant material, and in a way I hear them faintly whispering of work by Anna Atkins and William Henry Fox Talbot.  As with the first edition, each print was selectively bleached and selenium toned. 

  Above prints are available for purchase, feel free to use the email mentioned in contact page her to send an inquiry.   Printing of this negative is now done forever, as I placed a thick layer of varnish on it.  That varnish contains a myriad dust particles, large and small, so the negative itself is preserved, but basically unprintable. I'm elated to have completed this project and to have already sold a few prints from both first and second edition.  My art is my only source of income, and sales allow me not only to survive, but to dream of new heights to achieve within the medium I love so dearly.

Anton

Brief Wet Collodion Adventure - Some Tintypes of the Southern US

   Not long ago, I embarked upon a quick trip to some parts of the country I haven't explored yet, and, naturally, I carried a wet plate setup with me to see what sights inspire me to make some tintypes.  This trip was actually mainly concentrated on daguerreotypes, both historic and modern, but in this post I'll stick solely to collodion, with an additional historical treat at the end.  

  My objective was to explore a little bit of the gulf coast, and visit Baton Rouge, New Orleans, Biloxi, and Mobile, along with a few National Parks that can be found in Texas on the way back home.  The first plates on this journey were made right after I crossed the mighty Mississippi, in Baton Rouge.  I stopped for a bit of a hike along the river, and noticed the overabundance of white, sun-bleached shells that lined the shoreline in all directions.  After finding a shady place to park, as it was about 90F at the time, I first decided to make a plate featuring both the shells and the vast bridge I just crossed.  A 90mm Nikkor lens was used to achieve this with satisfactory, to me, results.  For the second plate, an 8in 1857 C. C. Harrison Petzval was used in order to throw the focus off a bit, and emphasize some of the blades of grass on the hill alongside rivers edge. 

  In Alabama I was rather fond of Bienville square in the middle of Mobile, and the fountain again called for the use of my trusty 90mm.  I decided to challenge myself exposure-wise, and placed the sun directly behind the second top pool, pointing the lens right toward it, so my subject is entirely backlit.  After developing the first plate, which was executed at f11 with 20sec exposure, I was overjoyed to not only find detail in the black ironworks, but also to see clear separation between the sky and the water on very top of the fountain.  For my second tintype on that location I chose to once again go to the Harrison Petzval to focus on the cross, erected there in 1909 by the Alabama Chapter of the National Society of Colonial Dames. 

  After that it was back to New Orleans.  I found the hustle and bustle of Bourbon Street to be too overwhelming at night, filled with cacophony and inebriation, but in the daytime it was rather nice, and so I set up on the corner of Bourbon and Orleans streets to make a few more tintypes.  As the light was fading, a group of travelers showed up, and kindly posed for my last tintype at that location. 

  In Houston, I stopped by the San Jacinto Museum.  Located on historic battlefield where Texas gained it's independence from Mexico, it has an impressive 567.31ft obelisk, which wasn't easy to make look interesting and different in a single frame, but I did try my best to do that. The wind really did do a number on the chemistry in this plate.  Generally I would have tossed this plate and made another attempt, but somehow, unlike in most cases with dirty plates, I think the artifacts work with the subject here rather than against it. 

  While washing the above plate, I noticed that through the trees surrounding museum grounds, I could see an enormous flame of a gas mining facility, and thought to myself that I just might be able to make it within a shot range of it right at sunset, which would let me capture some of the clouds as well as accentuate the flame, and maybe even retain a bit of detail in the post-industrial landscape that gas mining places afford in droves. I used a 400mm Tele-Fujinon for these images, and at f11 these exposures were 10 and 50sec, as the post-sunset light was fading fast, and I wanted the second image to be a bit brighter than the first.

  During the night, I made it all the way to the entrance of Big Bend National Park, which borders Mexico along the Rio Grand.  There's some great wilderness and geography there, and it's definitely worth visiting, especially with more time on one's hands to spend there.   At the first location I only made one tintype, using a Schneider 150mm lens, before taking a dip in the river and cooling off.  This was the hottest day of my travels, and my car thermometer showed all the way up to 98F when I got back in after washing this plate and wrapping up the dark box and chemistry.

  Instead of calling it quits due to heat, I decided to drive about a bit more, wait for the air two drop at least a couple of degrees, and made it to the second Rio Grand overlook, where I could once again capture two countries at once in my compositions.  Finding a nice bluff that offered ample perspective, I chose the 210mm Fujinon for the view down the river, before switching to 400mm Tele-Fujinon for the upstream view.  I think while the compositions of the last two plates here are indeed very similar, I did make the second plate for a very specific reason.  The viewer may be pleasantly surprised to find one small addition within the last frame, an addition that occurred naturally, and which is a relative rarity to be captured in tintype format.

  I apologize to the viewers for the slight mismanaging of the color balance of the above tintype copies.  For some reason my copy camera (i.e. my iPhone) decided to play tricks on me this time.  Regardless though, I am happy with my little wet plate haul from this trip, and with being able to add another three states to my having visited list, now only Alaska and 4 southeastern-most states remain unexplored. 

  I'll leave you all with a call to action.  No, not the usual "support us on Patreon" stuff we're all used, to, although if someone wished to purchase one or more of the above tintypes, they are indeed for sale (with prices ranging from $250 to $400), but with a strong suggestion to go to Austin as soon as possible.   Why Austin, you may ask?  Well, because there, within the walls of Harry Ransom Center, you can find the very first photograph ever taken, and be in it's overpowering presence.   I say overpowering, because after having seen it in so many history books, having learned about the ling and frustrating path the led Niepce toward his fist successes, which he dubbed Heliograph, it is truly marvelous to be able to stand just a foot away from the actual plate that gave him the first surviving semblance of chemical image.  By golly what a treat, go and see it as soon as possible.  The installation that surrounds it is rather robust, but I don't know how much longer this seminal work will remain on public display.  The metal plate is larger than you would imagine, and the image itself is nearly impossible to see, save for when it's lit just right, and even then only on parts and at varied angles.  Due to that, there are many variations of the image online, because most all images you'll see online or in print have been heavily altered view editing in order to make the image make sense, and when I just googled it, the overzealous AI answer for first image ever was even artificially colored for some baffling reason.  No, go stand next to that plate yourself, and you'll see what I mean - the precursor to so much great art is waiting to be seen by you live!

  As always, happy shooting and until next adventures,

Anton

Mission to Utah for 8x10 Tintype Landscapes

  Last month I went on a little mission to Utah. The aim was to spend a few nights camping around Moab with a good friend, and, over a period of four days, for both of us to make 8x10 tintypes of at least a few of the stunning landscapes. Having traveled through there on multiple previous occasions, I knew of the limitless compositional possibilities that await around every corner in that state, and this time we spent a concerted effort to explore just one such region in depth. 

  Shooting 8x10 wet plate in the field is always a bit of a challenge, but it becomes exponentially more arduous when combined with an unexpected heat wave and long, steep, rocky dirt roads, which seemingly wind forever through otherworldly canyon scenery of towering red monoliths and plateaus. While truly spectacular to marvel at through polarized lenses of one's sunglasses, the true majesty of these expansive landscapes, which consist of predominately deep coral and red tones, presents another fun opportunity for problem solving, as collodion is not very sensitive to those colors.  Some days were definitely better than others, but I think we both learned a lot from this experience, as well as carried away some plates we both can be happy with. Each day we spent shooting at one or two locations, while also scouting potential spots for next day. It's easy to fall into the camp where happy accidents are central to the theme of most images, but I'm glad my friend shares my passion for chasing perfection. After all, Nature's Glory deserves one's best effort.

  Below are the nine plates I deemed worthy of keeping from this memorable excursion. They were copied while being held in hand, and very slight adjustments in saturation and so forth were made to match the already varnished plates as closely as possible. These original, signed and dated plates are offered for purchase, and are priced at $750 each. All interested parties are welcome to reach out via email - thephotopalace@gmail.com

Professor Creek View 8x10 Tintype

Canyon Habitat 1 8x10in Tintype

Canyon Habitat 2 8x10in Tintype

Castleton Tower Closeup 8x10in Tintype

View With Caslteton Tower 8x10in Tintype

Colorado River Morning View 1 8x10in Tintype

Colorado River Morning View 2 8x10in Tintype

Colorado River Afternoon View 1 8x10in Tintype

Colorado River Afternoon View 2 8x10in Tintype

Thanks as always,

Anton