Last week I had a pleasure of taking my grandma, who is turning 90 this year, on a short trip to Death Valley. She has wanted to see it for years, and twice even made solid plans to go there with her friends, but both times plans fell through, and so this time we weren’t taking any chances.
My grandmother had a long and hard life. Born in Siberia, her Jewish family moved to Moscow shortly before WWII, and so at the age of 10 she was among those evacuated from the capitol as German forces were advancing. After the war, they returned to the ruins of the city, and my grandma went to dentistry school, working in a clinic for the next 40+ years. A small detail makes those distant years a bit more tangible; even while living in Moscow, they didn’t have running water or in-home heating until late 1960s, when they moved into a newly built apartment, my mother was going into 6th grade at the time. In early 90s, along with all of us, she watched as the country she was born in and to which she dedicated all her life fall apart and splinter, and then our small family immigrated to the US at when she was 64, and so she had to learn a whole new language and culture. She's a strong resilient woman, who survived poverty and atrocity, and managed to have a supportive circle of friends all through her life.
When I was a kid, it was my grandma who took me on most of my travels and vacations. The amount of time and nerves she spent attending to this troublesome child go uncounted, and so showing her Death Valley was a personal treat and honor. As you can imagine, the long drive was filled with fascinating stories of the days of yore, where I learned a bit more about my ancestors, and I’ll treasure those plates.
One such story I feel deserves to be written here in brief form. My grandfather, from whom I caught the photo-fever when I was just 7 or 8 years old, fought in Soviet Army during WWII. He enlisted when he was 19, and served in artillery unit. When he was 21, he was badly by shrapnel from an ordinance, which went under the shield of his canon and stuck him in the shin, shattering it, and lodging pieced of metal deep within the bone itself. While awaiting his cue for evaluation in the field hospital just behind front lines, he was told by a young medic to stop moaning from pain, because if he was deemed to be in really bad pain they would have just cut his leg off, while those not in agonizing pain were transported via train to hospitals deep in Russia’s interior, where better care was possible and the leg would have a better chance to be saved. While en route east, that train, filled with wounded soldiers, happened to make a late-night layover stop at one of the railroad depots in Moscow for just a couple of hours. With him, my grandpa carried a leather document satchel filled with cash he received as soldier’s pay from the military. Upon hearing that he was briefly stopped in his home city, my grandpa handed all he earned to a nurse, in return for her making one phone call to his parents, who upon hearing the news did all they could and got him off that train, so he could be attended to closer to home and in a much better hospital than those deep within interior of USSR. Now I know a bit better the story behind that scar on his left shin, which itched and bothered him for the rest of his life, because a few of the smaller shrapnel pieces were still there, as they were too deep in the bone to be extracted. How lucky he was to have the leg saved and not be a complete shut-in, which is what most disabled people were forced to become in a society not at all set up with their needs in mind. After the war he went to film school, and worked as a camera operator at one of the Moscow studios, sometimes filling in other creative roles on smaller projects. At home, he had an enlarger he bought shortly after graduating, and my intrigue for this process grew every time I saw him shoot a roll or two at a picnic during the day, then spending an hour or so in the one tiny bathroom of our apartment, and coming out with a wet contact sheet in a tray. After my mom and grandma selected which frames were to be printed, he dove right back in there, and in a short time there were prints strewn about bedroom floors, drying on newspaper. It was that 1950s Soviet enlarger that I learned to print on when I was 12, a few years after his passing, and I’ll never forget working with it set up along with four trays on an ironing board balanced on a stool over the bathtub. One had to be rather careful for the whole thing not to tumble over, but it was all worth it.
Being as obsessed with making images as I have been all my life, I couldn’t pass on the opportunity this trip was affording me to make daguerreotypes. With main focus of this two-day trip being grandma’s comfort and entertainment, there wasn’t a ton of time left for making images, and so I only brought with me 10 plates. It was a real treat to be showing my grandmother the whole process from start to finish, and she wouldn’t stop saying how she never thought it was so involved and labor-intensive. A prospect of a good plate never did fail to make me enjoy every step in its preparation, and this time I was determined to make a daguerreotype of her, so I worked more diligently than ever.
First day, before heading out of the hotel, I fumed 4 of the 10 plates I had with me. After driving around the valley for most of the day, I developed the plates right before sunset, and was heartbroken to see that all of them were severely affected by the heat of Death Valley. After all, it was about 36°C (98°F), and so even brief pauses in our mostly air-conditioned drive, allowed my plated to warm up much too much, thus all images were badly fogged.
Next day the game plan was adjusted. First off, to keep plates cool, I decided to employ an insulated bag with a couple of frozen dry-packs, plus some towels to soak up any moisture from condensation. I would fume 3 of the remaining 6 plates, shoot them in the morning, and then we would spend the hottest part of the day back in the room, where I could develop those 3 to see if things are going better. That evening I planned on going up to Charcoal Kilns site, which I am very grateful my girlfriend showed me on our journey there a few months ago, and it was there that I wanted to make a portrait of grandma because of their historic significance.
I was elated to see that the first three images, one taken along Twenty Mule Team Road, and two on the way to there, all turned out to my full satisfaction. The cooler bag worked wonders, and contrast was back. I fumed the remaining three plates, and we headed up to Charcoal Kilns. There, I briefly worried my grandma by climbing onto the roof of our rental car in order to get a better perspective for the plate of kilns by themselves. The light is difficult to judge at high elevation right during sunset, and so wanting to not miss my chance, I did two similar takes of grandma’s portrait. Upon coming back to the hotel, I was once again over the moon to see that all three plates were as good as I could have hoped for them to be.
Presented below are all 6 images from that memorable day; starting with both plates of grandma, which were actually exposed last. I must note here that the temptation to see the images completely finished had once again been too strong for me, and, ignoring the voice of my better judgment, I fixed and gilded all the plates right in the hotel, instead of waiting to get home to perform that wet part of the process in safety of known environment. Gilding on location is never too wise of a step, and should be circumvented whenever possible, as contamination of any unfamiliar kind can spell disaster for the image. This time I got fairly lucky, with only mild staining showing up in sky areas on some plates, but in the future I will do my very best to resist the gilding urge; there’s no harm in leaving developed daguerreotypes in a dark box for a day or few, and then finishing the process back home, in the confines of a familiar darkroom.
Still though, what a great little trip it was.
Anton
