Daguerreotype

A "Daguerreotype" is a small photo (near a business card size) that was made between 1835 to the 1850's. Named after Louis Daguerre this early form of photography was made on a flat piece of silver that was processed to produce a picture. Put in delicately embossed brass frame the picture sold for about $35.00. Rather than fading these images go dark and may eventually go black

I had the good fortune to work with one of the pictures. It had darkened quite a bit so I knew I had to compensate when working with it. Like any restoration you do NOT work on the original. A Daguerreotype has a soft surface (behind glass) that can easily be damaged so wiping off any marks or dust was not an option. Digital had not arrived in any great capacity yet so I took my camera and made a Black & White negative. 

My Plan was

• Overexpose to compensate for going dark.
• Add contrast to bring back some detail.
• Enlarge to a good size working print. (11X14)
• Get a decent small print for an end result

 The negative looked good so I made my work print (11X14). Because the goal was detail, I got detail and lots of it. Every speck of dust from the past 100 plus years was also exaggerated! I had to accept that because the dust was now part of the picture.

I started from this.

Over 500 hours later I was looking quite a bit better but not near complete. Work with a brush came to an end and nothing further was done that way. 

Now that we have digital...work became easier and much faster. Final results below

Adding a bit of color gives a bit of life back to the frame.