March 26, 2007

• See also, The Daguerreian Society The daguerreotype process is far from being dead. There are currently more modern daguerreotypists now working the process than at any time since the daguerreotype's demise in the late 1850s. Grand post, Argh!
• I find it interesting, paging through the work of the various artists, how many of them used the form of the Daguerrotype to invoke age or a dreamlike quality. Animal skulls seem to be a major motif. I was especially interested to see photos of common things, buildings, bridges, factory-scapes and landscapes, that evoke the kind of pictures one sees in the collections of local historical societies. Looking at these, often excellent, photographs, I found myself yearning to see something that jarred with the medium, something distinctly modern, distinctly out of place in a Daguerreotype. I'm not sure why I had that reaction. I suppose that this image, by Jesse Andrewartha comes closest to what I mean: the kind of conventional cityscape that one often finds in archives, but with distinctly modern cars in the foreground, although I have to say it's not my favourite picture on the site. Wonderful pictures there. Food for thought. Thanks Argh.
• Great images. VG linkie, thnks.
• Great stuff, Argh. Chuck Close also does daguerreotypes. Self-portraits, of course -- his face, hands, fingers...