Tools for the final preparation of the silver plate for Daguerreotypy:
Electroplating Box
Making Silver Plates for Daguerreotypy:
There a couple of ways to go about covering the copper plate with silver. The first way is to send the polished and preped copper plates to a plater. There are several good ones in the United States. Search the FAQ database for those. The second way, the way that keeps you independent is cladding or electroplating the copper plates. I've chosed electroplating.
I haven't found a lot of good information on this topic online. You can search the FAQ database for specifics, but the general idea is that you use an anode (pure silver plate) and cathode (copper plate) in a solution of silver and cyanide. An electrical current is sent through the plates and the silver is transferred and "plated" onto the copper - electroplating.
This is my electroplating tank and plate hangers:
Copper Plate Preparation
I am going to publish a series of posts about the Daguerreotype equipment that René Smets of Lummen, Belgium built for me.
All of this equipment is all based on his design and his work. Of course, I told him what I wanted and customized it where I could. And I gave feedback throughout the project, but the credit goes to René.
All material is copyright © 2010 Studio Q - Quinn Jacobson Photography and René Smets.
My Final Workshop in Germany
Jeanne asked a friend, Jasmine, to come over so that Erwin and Frederick would have someone to make portraits of - other than each other or me. Although, they made plenty of images of one another. Jasmine brought her boyfriend, Abel. They were patient and kind, I ended up making this portrait for them.
There will be more teaching and more exciting things in the U.S. for me, I know it. I'm already looking forward to it!
Canson Crob 'Art Albumen: Part 2
This is a very nice paper - here you can see the progress in the contact printer and the final toned print. Only one coat of Albumen, too! The only thing I don't like about it is that it curl and folds when it gets wet. Makes for a difficult smooth finished print. Overall, I give it a 9/10!
Canson Crob 'Art Paper: Albumen
I made some Albumen and floated some Canson Crob 'Art paper. I'll print out some negatives on this paper over the weekend.
This is only one coat - pretty impressive. It's a thin, almost vellum paper. It curls and wrinkles a lot when you lay it on Albumen, but relaxes okay after a minute or so. Make sure you have a "bubble mirror" when floating your paper.
This paper is also recommended for Calotypes. I'll give that a try, too.
Bienfang Graphics 360 Paper: Making Calotypes
This is my neighbor's house. It's at 48 Ludwig Straße. In 1942 a Jewish doctor and his daughter were taken from this home, sent to Auschwitz and murdered.
Technical Details:
Bienfang Graphics 360 Paper
4% KI + 1% Gelatin Bath 10 mins
Bright Overcast
20C / 68F
Exposure: 4:30
Aperture: f/8
Development: Gallic Acid / 15 minutes
Daguerreotypes in Belgium
We were invited to René Smets' house to talk and to make Daguerreotypes. René is building me some Daguerreotype equipment; fuming boxes, buffing block, gilding stand and mercury pot. His designs are top-rate. And as a retired architect, this type of thing is right down his alley.
In attendance were René, his wife, Annie, Jacques and Jeroen. Our friend, Kal from Brussels made a brief appearance, too. A great group of people! Annie kept us in food and coffee as we explored René's unique setup for making Daguerreotypes.
Rene's mercury pot.Typically, when making Daguerreotypes, you would have two fuming boxes (iodine and bromine) and a mercury pot under a fuming hood in a darkroom. Not René, he built his fuming boxes to take a modern film holder (4x5) and fume by time. Although, you can take the holder to the darkroom and check for color. We made plates outside on his garden patio. It's a very cool system and works well.
His mercury pot (one of them) uses visual inspection for development. It has two little safe windows; one to look at the plate and one for light. With his other mercury pot, development done only by time, no visual inspection.
I brought some 4x5 plates, but we had a difficult time preparing them. I don't think we cleaned/buffed the first plate well enough. It had only a faint image. Moreover, René's iodine crystals were weak. I think that gave us problems, too. We replaced his crystals with mine (fresh/new) and voilà, the magic of the Daguerreotype! Of course, not a perfect plate, but we were working with limited time and had other things to discuss (my equipment). It was fun and rewarding.
When I return to the United States, I will be making Half Plate and Whole Plate Daguerreotypes. I'll have everything here (except a fume hood) when René completes this equipment. So I will leave Europe ready to make plates. Daguerreotypes are the first in the processes of The '39-'89 Project I'm working on now. I'm very excited about the next couple of years!
René's fuming box - both iodine and bromine and he can spin the plate around for a more even coating.
15 mins at f/22
The Daguerreotype being held with BBQ tongs to dry it.
Jeanne watches as René plugs the Hg pot.
The working table.
The end result - a 4"x5" Daguerreotype
Dresden: The Final Adventure
For the past four years, Wet Plate Collodion photography has taken me east to Budapest, Hungary, west to Glasgow, Scotland, north to Gothenburg, Sweden and south to Barcelona, Spain; plus many other cities in between.
Some of the places I've traveled to teach, exhibit and make photographs.
I just returned from Dresden, Germany. It was probably the last Wet Plate Collodion adventure for me in Europe; at least until I return to Paris in a couple of years.
Like so many places in Europe, Dresden is a beautiful city with a lot of interesting history. I especially like the photographic history of these places. Dresden was the largest manufacturer of albumen paper in the 19th century. Albumen means “egg white”. The albumen printing process was invented by Louis Désiré Blanquart-Evrard in 1850. He was from Lille, France.
The Dresdener Albuminfabriken AG (The Dresden Albumen Manufacturing Company)
They produced 18,674 reams of albumen paper in 1888. Each ream consisted of 480 sheets 46 cm x 58 cm (~18” x ~23”) in size. To coat a ream of paper required 9 liters of albumen solution, obtained from 324 eggs; only the whites, separated by hand. All of the paper was made by women – all by hand. In 1888, this one factory consumed over six million eggs – that’s about 16,500 eggs per day! There were a lot of bakeries around making custards and other pies/pastries with all of the egg yolks, too. Can you imagine what Dresden’s collective cholesterol level was in the late 19th century? 
Women in Dresden making Albumen paper.
The Dresden Museum Wet Plate Collodion Performative Lecture
I was invited by the Dresden Museum to do a Wet Plate Collodion performative lecture in conjunction with the August Kotzsch exhibition. Kotzsch was a German photographer working from the 1860s to the 1880s in Dresden/Loschwitz, Germany. He lived in that area his entire life. He mainly photographed rural German life, but wanted to be graphic artist. The exhibit shows his early drawings from the 1840s – he was quite good. He did a lot of still life work, too. His albumen prints are amazing. One of the city historians told me that Kotzsch made his own albumen paper – how strange is that and, moreover, why would he do that in Dresden?
The Dresden museum is beautiful and the Kotzsch exhibition was nothing short of that. It was an honor for me to be there talking about Kotzsch’s process and showing the people how he made his photographs.
The space they had arranged for me was perfect; large (non-UV) windows and even a sink close by. The museum is in the center of the city. People were walking by watching me turning back the hands of time with the Wet Plate Collodion process through the large windows of the museum.
There were about 25 people in the audience; the perfect size. Ernst Hirsch was one of the attendees. Ernst is a filmmaker and photographer. He is well-known and admired. I asked him to sit for the demonstration. I later learned that he made a book about Kotzsch and his work. After the lecture, he presented me with a copy of the book (August Kotzsch 1836 - 1910. Von den Anfängen der Photographie in Loschwitz bei Dresden) and a print from one of Kotzsch’s negatives. It was a very nice addition to my book collection of 19th Century photographers. Ernst owns several hundred original prints of Kotzsch’s and knows his great-great-grandson – who, by the way is a successful fine art photographer today.
I ended up making a few portraits. I had a very nice time. The trip was a great way to end the Wet Plate Collodion adventure in Europe, at least for now.
I want to thank my wife, Jeanne for taking all of the great photos, Richard for translating all of my stories and jokes during the lecture, Ernst and Cornelia for the book and print, Jan for making the trek to Dresden from Berlin, and Frank for the DVD/prints and the long conversation at the hotel about communism and photography. I learned a lot about the former East Germany and the communists.
We miss you, Summer XOXOXO
A Dresden egg. I should’ve brought some home for paper!
Quinn doing his thing in Dresden, Germany 
"Is that Chuck Close?" someone asked. No, it’s the museum’s curator, Fredrich. 
Practicing on Ernst – the sitters need to practice before we expose the plate. 
Can someone get a photo of this? Please! 
The afternoon produced these images.
The afternoon produced these images. 
Richard, my translator and museum coordinator for the lecture.
Richard (negative) – so he can print on modern paper.
Herr Kotzsch und Herr Jacobson, standing on the shoulders of giants…
Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes and The 39-89 Project
It’s almost September! Let’s start with the most obvious change; the weather. The weather here has taken a turn for the cool. We must be entering Autumn (fall and winter are very mild here). Highs are 16-18 degrees Celsius (60s F) and lows are 8-10 degrees Celsius (40s F). It’s nice, I like it. It’s still raining a lot, but then again, when isn’t it raining here?
We’re thinking a lot about the big change coming for us and have our eyes and minds set on the northwest. I think that’s where we belong -but who knows? Right now, it looks like we should be leaving Europe around the first of the year. However, I always say everything, and I mean everything, is subject to change.
The '39-'89 Project & Exhibition: Generating Ideas
I can’t really work on the Wet Collodion part of my project here (I can research and write but I can’t make photographs for it), so I’m experimenting with some paper negatives and setting up to do some Daguerreotype work. I’ve got the Daguerreotype stuff ready to go, but that will have to wait until I’m back in the States. It’s way too much to do here – too much as in expensive/hassle, too much. The Calotypes on the other hand, are very doable here.
My goal is to setup (individual studio/darkroom space) for all three processes in the States; I call it “The 39-89 Project: The First 50 Years of Photography”. 1839 – 1889, the first fifty years of photography; Daguerreotypes, Calotypes and Wet Plate Collodion. Each process has its own aesthetic and special place in history; I’ll offer workshops in each process when I return to America.
I want to write a piece at some point about why Collodion is so popular today and why the other two processes will never gain that kind of popularity. It’s written in history, however, I want to write a contemporary piece about it. I’ve found some interesting correlations to the digital movement and would like to share those ideas in an essay.
My exhibition in 2012 (in Paris at Centre Iris) will be large Wet Plate Collodion pieces, but I’m going to do an ancillary project (technical and historical) about this period in the history of photography. I’ll include Calotypes and Daguerreotypes. It will give context to the main exhibit and it will be educational and interesting (I hope). And, it will be relevant to anyone interested in photography today (that’s kind of the point, yes?). In a way, you could say I’m doing the technical and academic work while I wait to return to the States. This “break” has been a great time to generate ideas and experiment with some things. I needed this.
Across The Pond… And Back Again
We made a trip to the States this month and really enjoyed it. We didn’t enjoy leaving our daughter, Summer, behind (for college), but we enjoyed seeing our family. It was good to see everyone and we’re really happy for Summer. She’s all settled in at Weber State University, my Alma mater, and is doing great. Europe will always be a part of us and we will return often, but I’m ready to go home.
Coming Up: Daguerreotypes & Wet Plate Collodion Performative Lecture
We’ll be going to Belgium for some Daguerreotype work the first weekend in September and then the second week, we’ll be in Dresden for a Wet Plate Collodion Performative Lecture at the City Museum. I’ll be doing some commissioned portrait work there, too.