This site now has 20 artist galleries and a link list of Daguerreotypists that stands at 50. Of course there are bound to be more practitioners out there and we are always looking to find new ones or ones we have missed. We are hoping to have as many galleries of contemporary practitioners as possible. There is also a gaggle of currently listed artists that have expressed interest in having a gallery page on the site but have yet to send in their images. Carpe diem as there are some big and exciting changes coming to the site.

We are planning on shifting both current sites to a .org website address as we fully intergrate the Dagforum and the .info blog. On the surface you probably won’t notice this when it happens as the current website addresses will have automatic redirects to the new one, though there may be some cosmetic changes to the design.

This is the end product of the initial collaboration between the two separate sites to solidify our community website intent, hence the move to a .org website address. The intergration means that the blog and forum will run on the same software so users will only need one login to comment on posts in the blog or make posts in the Forum.

A new and exciting feature being incorporated into the change is the addition of a self contained Wiki into the site using the mediawiki software. Through the wiki we hope to build a comprehensive resource to the Daguerreotype process which will incorporate the material available on the resources page and one that practioners can add too in a systematic way.

The other big change already bearing fruits is that Andy Stockton of TheDaguerreotypist.com has agreed to join Jon Lewis and myself (Alan Bekhuis) in management of the site. We all share the same enthusiasm for building a online Daguerreian community.

Making our largest artist gallery are the images of Rob McElroy. Another veteran of the process Rob too has mastered the process over many years. In his own words:

“I have been a professional photographer since 1980, and I first learned the daguerreotype process in 1997 at a George Eastman House Historic Process Workshop taught by daguerreian expert Ken Nelson. I was the first of Ken’s many students to make my own daguerreotypes using all of my own equipment, most of which I had to design and build myself.

Ken’s advanced class came the next year, and what followed was my singular pursuit, over the past 10 years, to work at achieving a level of technical perfection with the process, that would rival the daguerreian masters of the 1850s, and which would allow me to expose my own artistic vision onto the surface of the most beautiful, life-like and hauntingly mysterious photographic process ever invented, the daguerreotype.

The goal of my many years of research and experimentation has been to achieve a uniformly-polished, evenly-sensitized (from edge-to-edge) daguerreotype plate — that has a full range of tones, and is predictable and consistent from one plate to the next. I can finally say, I have reached my goal. In addition to Ken, I owe much of my inspiration and technical expertise to Irving Pobboravsky, the modern master of this most difficult of mediums. No one has advanced the knowledge and understanding of the daguerreotype more than Irv has.

I have achieved a few unique firsts with the daguerreotype process. I was the first person to expose a daguerreotype using electronic flash, and many of the images in my gallery here were produced using it. The electronic flash also allowed me to be the first person to stop-action on a daguerreotype plate; see my image of a swinging strand of pearls, frozen in mid-air. I also designed and built a candid daguerreian camera which allows me to make hand-held daguerreotypes utilizing a very fast modern lens. In addition, I have invented a new archival sealing tape for daguerreotypes which prevents air incursion into the enclosure, and which also scavenges-out any harmful atmospheric vapors that may have been trapped inside the enclosure when it was sealed. My daguerreian gallery in Buffalo, NY may be the first permanent gallery in over 100 years — to be designed and built exclusively to display daguerreotypes.

The daguerreotype is my passion, and now that it is under my control, instead of it controlling me, I will be making many new and exciting images that are not only mysterious and beautiful, but that also challenge the limits of the process, producing tones, contrasts and reflections that other processes can’t even hope to achieve.”

Following on from the exhibition annoucement is the addition of an artist gallery for Binh Danh with a selection of 9 images by Binh.

“Binh Danh was born in Viet Nam and immigrated to the United States in 1980. After acquiring a BFA in photography at San Jose State University, Binh Danh received an MFA in studio art at Stanford University in 2004. Binh Danh’s work is in the permanent collections of Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; M.H. de Young Museum, San Francisco; Museum of Contemporary Photography, Columbia College,
Chicago; Rochester Memorial Art Gallery, New York; and Philadelphia Museum of Art.”

Opening this week in San Francisco is an exhibit of Daguerreotypes by Binh Danh. The show with 9 x 12 inch Daguerreotypes of temples in South East Asia marks Danh’s ?rst public exhibition of daguerreotypes. He says: “with contemporary equipment, I have perfected a process of exposing a daguerreotype in the darkroom, allowing me more creative control.”

For more information on Binh or the exhibition click here for the Exhibition pdf or visit HainesGallery.com

HAINES GALLERY
FIFTH FLOOR
49 GEARY STREET
SAN FRANCISCO
TEL: 415.397.8114
www.haingesgallery.com

January 8 – February 28, 2009
Opening Reception with the Artist:
Thursday, January 8, 2009, 5:30pm to 7:30pm