Origin of Silver // Making Becquerel Daguerreotypes With Brenton West

In my June video, I demonstrate the becquerel daguerreotype process with Brenton West. www.brentonwest...
You can also see a video by ‪@GeorgeEastmanMuseum‬ demonstrating the process on a 35mm plate. Though I wouldn't recommend doing this in an unventilated room:
• Make a 35mm Daguerreotype
Brenton West has taught me how to make daguerreotypes in 2013 and 2016, but I was never able to continue with the process as I did not have my own fume cupboard. Now I have all the equipment I need to continue working on this process! For health and safety reasons, it is best to use a fume cupboard if you are working with iodine crystals/iodine gas.
I am making daguerreotypes for my "Origin of Silver" project which is funded by Arts Council England and my Patreon supporters. In this video, I used silver plated copper sheets. In the future, I would like to use the silver reclamation process demonstrated in an earlier video where I reclaim silver from fixative.
It is important to reclaim silver as it is a finite resource. Silver comes from high energy supernovae explosions, a reaction which cannot be recreated on the Earth. Once all of the silver is mined, it is gone. I used images of famous nebulae, including the Pillars of Creation to further highlight the cosmic connection between silver and photography.
The steps needed are:
Wear nitrile gloves
Create positive transparencies and cut to size.
Polish silver plate to a mirror finish.
In a fume cupboard and fuming box, expose the silver to iodine crystals / iodine gas. Some print departments have these for etching. Do this until the plate turns straw coloured. In the video we used light to demonstrate the colour change, but you would need to do this in a darkened room with a small white light source.
In my own darkroom which is partially ventilated, I am probably going to use a vapour mask in addition to the fume cupboard. Just in case!
After exposing, leave the fume cupboard running for one hour to get rid of any excess gas.
Put the transparency and tru-view/uv resistant glass on top of the plate, and expose under a daylight / grow bulb for around 7 seconds.
Then put in a box covered with ruby lith and then expose to strong sunlight for an hour / until you see an image forming on the plate.
Remove the plate from the box and put into a small tray of fixative, made from sodium thiosulphate and boiling water. Leave until the image clears.
Wash in a small tray of distilled / filtered water.
Dry with a pressure dryer or hurricane blower. This stops watermarks from forming.
Frame behind glass immediately as the image can wipe off like condensation. Brenton uses a brass frame covered in acid-free tape to avoid contact corrosion. The silver plate should not touch the glass.
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[@NicStage]

"strong sunlight for one hour" in England?! :D

[@MelanieKing]

Hahahaha, you'd be surprised!

[@alun7006]

Very cool!

[@MelanieKing]

Thank you!

[@danford8989]

Wow people in the 19 century did things dangerously! What a cool method to develope a photo! Always look forward to your videos.

[@MelanieKing]

Yes they did! Though they probably weren't as clear on some of the dangers. :)

[@midwestnobody8531]

This is really interesting using transparencies, to create your image

[@MelanieKing]

Thank you :)

[@ivankochetov9983]

You did it!!!

[@MelanieKing]

I did, hurrah! It will be the start of many more!

[@marcosr.2681]

Have you ever thought of making an autochrome? I'm not sure about how difficult it would be, but it's fascinating. I love the way autochromes capture colors

[@Veptis]

I want to try this as it's such a unique result. In the literal sense if unique. There will be one photo and that's it. But the exposure time is more extreme than dryplates I have tired before. Trying do do portraits at noon will take minutes not seconds.

[@MelanieKing]

You should definitely try it! I am interested to see your results. :)

[@fotografiaquimica]

very good!!!