So much that a camera can do has yet been un-attempted, so many seemingly ubiquitous subjects have been limited to formulaic portrayal. My passion for photography, and life-ling dedication to this most perfect of art forms, implores me to constantly reinvent myself, and, whenever possible, the medium I love so much. In this project, I once again turned to documentary side of photography, the purest incarnation of this multi-faceted discipline. What could I do to make interesting images, while challenging myself and pushing the boundaries of how cameras have been used before.
Prior to this project, animals in their natural environment have never been the focus of daguerreotype images. Pets and livestock have been subject of rare and sought-after plates from 1840-50s, and a few landscapes by skilled daguerreotypists of that time happen to catch a wandering cow or two, but no serious effort seems to have been made toward focusing on creatures in uncontrolled settings. This really isn’t that big of a surprise. With its low sensitivity to light, leading to long exposures, daguerreotypes require rather long exposures. Add to that having to work with a bulky camera on a tripod, which has very shallow depth of focus from which the subject can’t move much. On top of that, daguerreotypists usually tended to closely follow market demands, and portraiture was by far the easiest kind of images to get paid for. Finally, preparation of plates is a tedious task, and if you’re not in any kind of control of your subject, a lot of trial and error comes into play rather quickly. These challenges served as pure enticement to me when I learned of a colony of feral cats at our local park.
I was never truly a cat person, always related more to openness and sincerity of dogs, but I respect all animals, and enjoy getting in touch with their energy. As most people are probably aware of, cats are among the least cooperative of all subjects, so I knew this was going to take a lot of patience and dedication. Starting in early October, on nearly daily basis, I paid visits to this liberated feline hangout, armed with one or two plates ready for exposure. The goal was to catch these creatures in candid moments amid their favorite backgrounds. They spend midday deep in the bushes, hiding from relentless San Diego sun, and prefer to emerge only an hour or two before sunset. These kitties also don’t like to hang out in open spaces much, preferring deep shade of some low cactus or palm, which made exposure times range wildly, from 7 to 60 seconds, with most being 15-20sec. More often than not some noise from a nearby freeway or appearance of a fellow troop member made my subjects move mid-exposure, but I never let that discourage me from trying again and again. Some individuals were just impossibly jittery, even when they sat or lounged their heads would be turning every two seconds, scanning surroundings for danger. Others were relatively comfortable with my presence, and all I had to do was not move too fast and hope that no sudden noises would scare them. Basically, seeing each successful plate coming out of my developing chamber felt like a miracle every time.
I can honestly say that this was the most difficult photographic project I’ve completed so far. Sure, there have been much more complex works that took me many more attempts than I could have ever expected, but in those instances I was usually shooting for something so well defined in my imagination that I could not deviate from that goal. This time though, no preconceived notions of specific compositions existed in my imagination, the only aim was beauty and uniqueness. I was working in a strictly documentary style with a live subject, which I had zero control over, and so my patience and intuition had to be pushed to their limits. Due to relatively high level of difficulty of this project, I gave myself a bit more leeway in terms of possible acceptance of plates with more slight imperfections that I normally would allow myself to have. There was no way though I could bring myself to erase them, I mean look at that cuteness! Also, please do keep in mind, as always, that daguerreotypes are different from every other medium you have ever seen. There’s no way to really translate how each unique plate truly look in real life; thus images below are to be taken as a guide to their appearance. When examined live all these plates look considerably better than what I was able to achieve in copying them for this post, but only those who purchase each plate, and their guests of honor, will have a pleasure of experiencing these plate live.
Anton
P.S. These 12 original plates are now available for purchase on first come basis. Prices range from $1200 to $2500 depending on which plate it is, so please do feel free to email with inquiries.
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