Well I made another successful daguerreotype! After a rather underexposed attempt I re-polished the plate and tried again. So I have two (somewhat) successful images out of three attempts. Pretty good but I doubt my luck will last.

I’m still at the phase where the process is more important than the image. So after polishing, sensitizing, and loading up the camera I started looking around for things to photograph. It was nighttime again so I had to construct an image. Thus this oddly lit image of what I happened to have at arms length: two old cameras and a homie. I believe this might be the first ever daguerreotype of a homie! If I’m wrong please let me know, I’d love to see the image…

For reference this image was exposed for 30 minutes at f/2.8 and developed for 3 hours under rubylith and a 200 watt light at a distance of about a foot. The odd thing about this image is that I forgot to take off my camera’s UV filter. Perhaps the lights I used don’t use much UV.

A lot has changed since my last post. Most importantly I got a buffer. A 1750 rpm, 1/3 horse power buffer with muslin buffing wheels. It doesn’t have a lot of power but I’m not going to be polishing meteorites either. It has made a world of difference but I have a long way to go before my polishing is anywhere near perfect.

I have also gotten an enlarger and the rest of the paraphernalia that goes along with it. I love printing sliver gelatin and as soon as I get a couple more items I’ll be printing away. It’s odd considering an enlarger as the contemporary way of creating photographs.

Despite printing silver with my enlarger and occasionally eyeing a digital camera (the new Canon EOS 5D Mark II looks amazing!), I think my passion will lie with the daguerreotype.

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