The back door to the church:

I began to make Daguerreotypes as a response to the need to make a unique gift for my intended in about 1978. At that time, I was reading Taft's "Photography and the American Scene" and one of the footnotes detailed the process in a very loose way. I had the ingredients at hand and proceeded to make a daguerreotype in our kitchen. The work I did with daguerreotypes introduced me to the pleasures of the art history of photography. This particular image is about 3x4 inches and took about 8 attempts before a successful plate was made. With so much time to think and read in between pictures I was able to formulate all kinds of meanings for the images. This one was partly a response to the images of Frederick Evans that I had encountered in a Beaumont Newhall book.

Note:Note: Daguerreotypes are made by exposing a clean, polished silver plate in subdued light to the fumes of elemental iodine until it appears the colour of light beer. The colouration on the plate is caused by an exceedingly thin layer of silver iodide which is light sensitive. This sensitive plate is then exposed in the camera for a fairly lengthy exposure (bright sun f8 lens perhaps 5-20 seconds) . The invisible (latent) image is then developed by fumigation with mercury vapour which produces a whitish coatng in the areas most exposed to light, a simple sodium thiosulfate bath is used to fix the image. The finished picture is a mirror with a delicate (butterfly wing like) coating. Depending on the angle of view, the image may appear as a positive or as a negative. This process is extremely toxic and involves corrosive substances. Making daguerreotypes is potentially dangerous and can kill you or your kids.