Remember my post about how to tell the difference between a daguerreotype and an ambrotype? I mused about how much I’d love to have a dag of a modern marvel like an ipod or the fabulous steampunk Neverwas Haul. If you visit the original post, you’ll see a comment from Mr. John Danforth, Modern Daguerreotypist.

And here’s the coolest part:

John Danforth loves to hand craft daguerreotypes for people based on existing photos they already have. John says high resolution color digital files work best. Many of his customers choose a favorite wedding photograph to be rendered as a beautiful keepsake.

How much does it cost? Well, considering the fact that each one is handmade it shouldn’t be a surprise that they aren’t cheap. A 4×5 inch daguerreotype will cost you $400, a whole plate (6.5×8.5″) will put you back $800-$1,200 depending on whether you want to frame it or have it in a custom leather case. All of John’s daguerreotypes are glazed with anti-reflective, ultra-clear museum glass.

Why Daguerreotypes? According to John, there are two main reasons. The first is the incredible detail you get using this process. Anyone lucky enough to have seen a dag knows exactly what he’s talking about. The other reason is close to my heart: Longevity.

Longevity is very important to me because I want our way of life to be recorded in an accurate and accessible manner for our descendants. Because of this belief, I find it necessary to work in a medium that has longevity that can be measured in centuries and millennia. Do you believe that anyone will know what to do with a CD-ROM full of JPEG files in 10,000 years? Could you play an Edison wax cylinder if I brought one over to your house today?

D-reamy.

I contacted John and he’s willing to submit to some interview questions via email from yours truly. Contact me if there are any questions you’d like me to ask.

Other links of interest:
John Danforth’s website
John’s pages on newdags.com
Daguerreotype of 9/11
vintage dags in pantufla’s flikr collection

*The other coincidence was when I mused about how cool it would be to dye photo prints with coffee. Turns out my friend’s brother does exactly that…with cyanotypes. And then Mark gave me his hauntingly beautiful hummingbirds print. (Many, many thanks, Mark.) See what I mean about magic happy wish machine?

[Photo Credit: That's John in his studio, from a gallery about making dags on his website. I'm not sure who took the photo, but you can see the photographer's feet. ]

Absolutely no food or drinks on the work surface. If you need to have water handy, please please please keep it on the floor at your feet. One spill and your irreplaceable treasures can be ruined forever. There is no “undo” button for this kind of error.

Cover your work-in-progress. This is important if you are going to leave your project out on a table for any length of time. Use opened folders or a large piece of cardboard. It will prevent damage caused by knocking, blowing, and dropping of who-knows-what.

Wear gloves. It’s the simplest way to keep oils and salts from your fingers away from photographs. You might not see today’s fingerprints yet…but they will acidify over time and show up as a stain. If gloves are a problem, be sure to wash your hands before working, and skip the hand lotion. If you get up to answer the phone or any other task, remember to wash your hands again before you sit down to work.

Support fragile and large prints very carefully. That includes on the way to the scanner as well as while you are scanning. Use two hands to pick up and move items to prevent bending and possible breaking. If the item is truly oversized, enlist the help of a friend. Very fragile items and tightly bound volumes can be digitized using a digital camera rather than a scanner. Avoid squashing.

[I searched in vain for Do-It-Yourself instructions on how to create a preservation-friendly book cradle or support for oversize items. Can anyone out there help? Please email me or leave a comment below.]

Never use an automatic feeder for photographs. They are OK for research notes and other modern office papers, but dragging a print across glass is a sure-fire way to scratch the emulsion. And don’t even get me started on misfeeds and jams. Ouch! I feel slightly nauseous just thinking about an heirloom print getting caught in one of those.

Which brings up a subtle but important tip: If your preview scan shows that the image is crooked, be sure and pick up the photograph to reposition it. Scooching it over can drag the emulsion across the glass and scratch it.

Next up: Tips for naming your digital files so you can find your new digital photographs.

Here’s something to consider:

Portable Scanners Are Very Affordable. If you have a laptop and $80 in your family history budget, you could purchase a brand new portable scanner and bring it with you. Just imagine returning from your trip with digital copies of one-of-a-kind, antique family photographs, letters and documents. You know, the treasures that no one will EVER allow out of the house.

Scan and Share. You can use the scanning time to collect family stories. Or write down important information on the backs of the originals if no one has done it yet. And thanks to the wonders of our Instant Digital Age, you can burn a set onto a CD and hand it to the family member who owns the originals. Regular CDs are fine as long as it’s only for short term storage. For long term storage, I recommend MAM-A Gold CDs or an external hard drive. It’s great to upload an extra set to the online storage company of your choice, but don’t rely on them to store your photographs indefinitely.

My Portable Scanner Recommendation: I’ve had a CanoScan LiDE for years and I love, love, love it. I’ve been meaning to blather about it here for weeks. Here are some of its great features:

• Lightweight enough to carry around.
• The box it came in has a carrying handle so no need to buy a separate case.
• Powered by USB cord, no separate power cord needed.
• The platen locks to prevent damage while in transit (I’m sure all portable scanners do this, but I was impressed).
• Lid removes completely, allowing for scanning of bound volumes and oversize materials without squashing.
• Great quality high resolution scans for under $100.

I’m not alone in my love for the LiDE. Becky over at kinexxions is singing the praises of her new Canon LiDE 70. Her post was my inspiration to dust mine off and get it uploaded.

Stay Tuned: Later this week I’ll share tips on how to name your digital files so you can find them again, how to scan originals without damaging them, and how to safely mark the originals so they don’t end up as orphan photos in the attic.

Related articles you might have missed:
Flash drives not recommended for long term storage.
Digitally restoring photographs.
Do you know about this digital printing feature?
Will JPEG be around in twenty years?

This jaw-droppingly beautiful book doesn’t have a single word of narrative text. Yet it spins an unforgettable tale of undersea cities with Martians in bubble helmets and clockwork steampunk wind-up fish. Then there’s the kids who discover this fantastic world via a camera that pops in and out of the ocean again and again. You can see the camera reflected in the fish’s eye if you look carefully at the cover.

For copyright reasons I don’t feel comfortable scanning and uploading more images of the book. But trust me…it’s gorgeous from cover to cover. It won the coveted Caldecott award, so you know this is quality material.

My favorite part is the photo-of-a-photo-of-a-photo. The protagonist just happens to have a magnifying glass handy, so he can see back to the very first photo taken with the mysterious camera. BTW, I know this isn’t possible with the resolution of regular Earth cameras. So please don’t email me to tell me that, OK? There was a time when I thought it was do-able, but that was before I learned how to develop my own b/w film. Also, did I mention the wind-up fish? Martians? Yeah. Flotsam takes place in the realm of fantasy, pure and simple.

I can’t say enough good things about this book. I think everyone under the age of fifteen should have a look at it. This is the kind of book that rings an inner bell for future historians. Maybe even a photo archivist or two, you never know.

If you’re a genealogist with grandkids, use this book to talk about the passage of time and family members who came before. Describe what the photo-within-a-photo would look like if every picture was his or her ancestor. Talk about everyday history like what great-great grandma would have worn at the seashore. Share your favorite memories of the beach, too.

And remember, the story is told without any narrative text. That means a four year old like Ben can read the story to you. Four year olds love this, trust me. Especially when they have a big sister who learned how to read in Kindergarten this past year.

Flotsam would make a great Father’s Day gift.
Use this link to read more about Flotsam at Amazon.com.
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[To give you an idea of how things looked back then, here's a link to Yahoo in 1996 -- with thanks to the Wayback Machine for archiving it.]

Around this same time, library card catalogs were being converted whole hog into keyword searchable OPACs (Online Public Access Catalog). Some people were freaking out. I mean, well and truly losing it.

In response, the more pro-digital students created a term for anyone who resisted the coming digital tide:

It was meant as a serious insult, which frankly seems odd for a library school, doncha think?

Anyhoo… If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you’re familiar with my dire warnings about the fragility of digital records. Pay heed to these warnings, my friend. You would be crushed if your favorite photographs disappeared in the blink of an eye. So print your favorites and back up the rest on a regular basis. Right? Of course right!

Note: If you haven’t read my dire warnings before, you can find them all by clicking on the word “digital” in the left hand column. Or you can subscribe to my newsletter and get a free e-booklet titled “8 Blunders People Make When They Scan Photos…And How You Can Avoid Them.” That link is also in the left hand column.

Here’s the bottom line: All of us — archivists and non-archivists alike — need to learn a new set of skills for preserving digital photographs long term. But that doesn’t mean we should avoid digitization.

Why fight powerful tools like Photoshop Elements… something you can pick up for less than 100 bucks, fer cryin’ out loud. These tools help you restore a damaged photograph without having to spend years training as a conservator. And as far as I’m concerned, this fact alone justifies the extra preservation effort.

If you’ve got some time on your hands (I won’t lie to you, there is a steep learning curve for the more complicated moves) and you’d like to learn how restore your pictures yourself, you won’t find a better resource than RetouchPro. The forum and tutorials are free, but paid subscriptions are available if you’d like to chip in.

If you’re not interested in learning new software but you have a treasured family photograph that needs restoration, I can help. Clicking this link will create an email with the subject already filled in, all you have to do is click send. (I saved you a few steps with my HTML skillz, dawg!) In moments, you’ll get an automatic reply with our current price list for restoration and scanning work.
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That led me to a blog called eclexys.

And, no…I don’t know what eclexys means. And, yes…I looked it up. [Update: Here is the author's explanation.]

Anyhoo…

More specifically, I landed on a post about how great it would be to find your grandma’s blog. Can you imagine?

But personally, I would have loved to read my grandparents’ blogs, seen their photostreams, watched their videoblogs one by one. Beautiful anachronism, and wonderful to experience people whose genes you share, who live in another time that, in some ways, feels more like another place.

Yes indeed. The past is a foreign country, as I like to say.

The author also reflects on how cool it would be for just one of his descendants to find his eclexys posts. Assuming, that is, that they aren’t destroyed by bitrot first. Bitrot is my new favorite digital term, by the way. Hooray for eclexys!

Read the entire eclexys post here.

P.S. I spent all day today in a workshop about digitizing analog sound recordings. As a bonus, I got to see some library school buddies of mine, including David Seubert of the incredible wax cylinder digitization project. I’ve got lots of tips to share with you from the workshops, but a major review might not happen until the weekend. While you’re waiting, why not visit David’s project website and download some free MP3s? You’ll be glad you did.

The article discusses ways to upload and share images via online digital albums. There are, of course, many more options than the ones suggested in this piece.

Print your digitals. Hands-down the single easiest thing you can do to extend the life of your photos. It’s so cheap these days that there’s really no excuse not to. And unlike the days of film, you don’t have to pay for the bad shots. Such a deal.

Where should you send your digitals to be printed? The same place you used to send your film. If your trusted local photo shop is long gone, you’ll have to pick a mail order service. I’ve never used the mail order ones, so I don’t have much to say about it.

Got an online digital provider that you love? Share your great find by posting a link in the comments section, below.
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But look in your own family photo collection and you’ll find plenty of photographs with little to say. Stiff, uncomfortable looking ancestors whose names have been lost to time. We archivists have a term for these mystery pictures: Orphans.

I teach a variety of workshops, and almost all of them are about archiving. No surprise, I’m sure. But my favorite class isn’t one of the archiving ones. It’s the class where I teach folks how to record the stories behind their photographs — before they disappear.

Here’s an example…

The photo below is of me and my friends. Is it really worth 1,000 words to you? I sincerely doubt it.

Yet I could write tens of thousands of words about this photo and why we’re having such a great time:

1. We’re enjoying the deliciously funky groovy sound of VO5.

2. We scored a table in this very crowded tavern, even though we didn’t have dinner here.

3. We still got to pig out (see #2). Witness the plate scraped clean. For a short time, it held guacamole, chips, salsa, and hot pickled vegetables.

The woman on my left is the reason why I’m laughing so hard in this photograph. We don’t get to see each other often, so we usually
end up exchanging our most dramatic stories of the past year. Debbie is a great story teller who keeps building and building until I practically have to beg her to stop. See her finger on the table toward the bottom right corner? Looking at this photo now, I can practically hear the dull thud as she pounds the table to emphasize each point.

And that’s just for starters, folks. I only have space here to barely begin to write about the woman on my right. We’ve known each other for almost twenty years. We’ve lived together, traveled together, gone to school together. Lori attended the births of both my kids and acted as my doula each time. There’s simply not enough space to go into all of what Lori means to me on this blog. But I plan to write those kinds of details down, because I want my kids to know their Auntie Lori at least partially through my eyes. Fortunately, I have the perfect opportunity coming up in January to do just that.

The simple writing technique for capturing memories before they diappear was created by Denis LeDoux. His Photo Scribe book is available from Amazon.com, which has a description plus (rave) reviews.

If you have plans to spend time with loved ones in the next few weeks, why not invite them to share some of the stories behind their photographs? And in the good cause of preventing future orphans, be sure to jot down names if the photos aren’t already labeled. Your great-great granddaughter will be glad you did.

Photo Credit: The Ever Fabulous Olive.
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They say a photograph is worth a thousand words, but with each passing generation your family photographs become more and more mute. The next time you are at a family gathering, why not use my favorite video camera trick to record the stories behind your photographs.

What happens when people sit down with a photo album? The stories naturally pour out. Funny stories. Sad stories. Stories you’ve never heard before. Stories you’ve heard a gazillion times.

Here’s my trick: Set up your video camera on a tripod directly behind a comfortable chair. The idea is to shoot over-the-shoulder as the family matriarch or patriarch pages through a photo album. It’s a great tactic for story tellers who are camera shy.

I’ll be honest, this method isn’t going to give you TV quality pictures. And you should purchase a plug-in microphone if you want to drop the audio into future projects. But even at it’s most basic, this technique will capture the who-what-where-when behind your family photographs.

If you try this out at a family gathering this December, please drop me an email. I’d love to hear how it went! sally @ jacobsarchival.com

Glossary:
Life Catching
Lifehack
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