Daguerreotype Workshop

The daguerreotype workshop at Project Basho, with guest artist Takashi Arai, was such a great experience for me. I think it made me appreciate the patience of photographers of the past and how much they developed the processes of photography to make it less time consuming and less toxic for us today.

The actual experience of making the daguerreotype was quite frustrating for me because I am such an impatient person. Polishing the silver for 20 minutes was probably the hardest thing for me to do and Takashi said that I probably didn't polish it well enough and that's why no image came out the first time I did it. It was very disappointing that nothing came out on my first try but I went back 2 days later to try again. Takashi had a plate there that he had already polished for me to use, which was awesome! It was not sunny at all and it was looking like rain so I sat still for 13 minutes to get a good exposure. It was so exciting when it came out!

Here's how it came out!!