I have made a few of attempts at this scene but a couple of recent conversations with other contemporary daguerreotypists and with a improvement I made to my polishing technique, my proficiency with the process has reached a new level.

Since I lived in NYC and left in 2002, I have been back 5 times adhering to the same travel formula at this time of the year. Its become something of a ritual, traveling to NYC and staying with my friend Harvey Zucker in Soho. I visit old friends and colleagues – this year it was Jerry Spagnoli (pictured with a recent whole plate of his) and the Photo people at the Metropolitan museum of art where I used to work (pictured holding a case I made for the collection there) .
After New York I head off to the annual Daguerreian Society meeting which is in a different US city each year but follows the same formula. This year was different though, my table at the trade fair was full with my Daguerreotypes in my cases, not just the cases for sale. I sold 6 of mine and sales of contemporary daguerreotypes were well up this year signaling what I think will be a good year ahead for the genre

Sunday in some formal gardens yielded this 1/3 plate. The 52 second exposure calmed the motion of the water and left passersby unseen.

This recent portrait is for an exhibit I’m having at the NZ Portrait Gallery from Nov14th till Feb 10th.

Recently installed at my dealer gallery is the first in a series of portraits of Maori from the Tainui iwi (tribe). The display cabinets are the latest incarnation of my design where the lighting (cold light leds) is from the side to go with the horizon orientated buffing strokes on the plates. The underside of the top of the cabinets is black velvet so that viewing of the plates is easy in even a well lit, white walled gallery space. A recent article on the gallery (pdf file 1.9mb) sheds light on the type of art shown there.

Another academic journal has focused on my daguereotypy, pdf file available here (8.1mb).