Peace and Pandemonium

"The dillema and the strength of photography:
It's the easiest medium in which to be competent but it's the hardest medium in which to have personal vision." Chuck Close

I was watching the Ovation channel, which is my most favorite cable television station, and was fascinated with the show entitled "Fixing The Shadows".
It's about photography.
The early days and it's proliferation over time.
I found myself longing for those days when taking a photograph was not as simple as point, click and download.
To be a photographer back then you had to be willing to devote your life to discovering HOW to develop the art.
The pioneers of photography were not only creatives and artists but chemists who, through trial and error, discovered the chemical process necessary to print images.
The prints they created were the results of much research, time, effort, passion, enthusiasm and dedication.
I sometimes feel that this level of commitment is missing in the photography world today.
I feel that I myself have been guilty of this. Hell, we all are. The digital age is too easy.

I was most impressed with the mirrors with a memory other wise known as a Daguerreotype.
The final image is an extremely delicate, one of a kind, almost holographic vision.
Unfortunately many of the photographers who made these masterpieces got extremely sick and even died from mercury poisoning as a result of bringing the image to life.




This daguerreotype is of Edgar Allen Poe shortly before his death.



A young congressman named Abraham Lincoln.

I wish that I could have been photographed in this way.
I wish that I could photograph others using this technique.
I wish I had the knowledge and equipment to actually do such a thing.
I wish I wish I wish.