Photograph:"Winter Flood" a 4.5 minute time exposure during a recent flood in the Squamscott River in Exeter, by Casey Waters. Courtesy of the artist At Iocovozzi Fine Art, everything old really is new again.The downtown Savannah art gallery, one of a handful of venues in the United States to showcase antique 19th-century daguerreotypes, is featuring 34 new "dags" by Casey Waters, a rising star in the photography world.Gallery owner Kim Iocovozzi is especially excited to host the first exhibition of contemporary daguerreotypes in Savannah. Very few photographers in the United States ...

Walk into any home and you’ll see color photographs on display, either standing in frames or hanging on walls. The photos depict graduations, family vacations and other events of significance to the owner. The transition from all black and white photography to commercially available color took close to a century. Daguerre and others tried to invent a color photographic process by experimenting with different chemicals. But they were largely unsuccessful in their quest for permanent color images. In 1850, a New York state Baptist minister, Levi Hill, announced that ...

From rainforest treasure to luscious treat—immerse yourself in the story of chocolate. A gift for the gods. A symbol of wealth and luxury. An economic livelihood. Bonbons. Hot fudge. Candy bars. For thousands of years humans have been fascinated with the delicious phenomenon that we call “chocolate.” Journey through history to get the complete story behind the tasty treat that we crave in Chocolate, an exciting new exhibition developed by The Field Museum. To learn more about the exhibit, Visit the Field Museum website.

Cellulose acetate film and nitrate film share some patterns of deterioration, such as brittle quality, bubbles, chemical by-products and an odor. Unlike nitrate, safety film is not a fire hazard. There are several considerations when storing negatives. First is the environment. Negative deterioration is slowed when the material is stored at a constant temperature and humidity. The second consideration is that negatives range in size.  Each size needs to be stored separately so that the weight is evenly distributed. As with all photographic material, wear non-latex ...

FILM (HANDLE WITH CAUTION) According to James Reilly, in the IPI Storage Guide for Acetate Film (Rochester, NY:IPI, 1993), all film-based negative deterioration is dependent on exposure to high humidity and temperature. Once conditions are right for deterioration, chemical changes become cumulative and actually rapidly increase. The characteristics of the deterioration vary depending on the type of negative. Of great concern are nitrate negatives that are not only fragile but also dangerous. If you discover you ...

Tampering with Perfection Photography was born pure.  In the beginning, there was the daguerreotype. Each daguerreotype was made individually in the camera. No negative was used. Since photography was so new, and seemed so miraculous, daguerreotypes were prized for their perfect accuracy in recording a scene or making a portrait. Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes called photography "the mirror with a memory." Why would anyone try to improve upon such perfection? LEARN MORE AT THE PHOTOGRAPHY MUSEUM WEBSITE.

The history of prints corresponds to the development and history of the negatives used to produce them. After prints, negatives make up a significant part of our family photograph collection. But how many people know about the negatives in their possession? Glass Negatives Photographers created their own supply of negatives in the 1850s by coating a piece of glass with a new substance, known as collodion. The light-sensitive silver halides in the collodion captured and preserved the image during the photographic process. If you have glass negatives in your collection, ...

World War I claimed an estimated 16 million lives. The influenza epidemic that swept the world in 1918 killed an estimated 50 million people. One fifth of the world's population was attacked by this deadly virus. Within months, it had killed more people than any other illness in recorded history. READ MORE HERE Documents and photos relating to this story can be found at the National Archives and Records Administration website.

Our ancestors initially used plain paper albums to arrange their photographs with captions written underneath until commercially manufactured albums became available. These albums figured prominently in the decorating scheme of nineteenth century parlors and were displayed beside the family bible for visitors to view. Often, the albums contain the name of the owner. Mid-nineteenth century photo albums often resembled bibles. These nineteenth century albums evolved from scrapbook pages to pre-cut albums back to scrapbooks. As albums lost their formality and amateur ...

All of us are familiar with paper prints. Every year we produce them by the thousands, documenting our family milestones and vacations. The paper prints of our ancestors and the ones we take today are similar, but the chemicals and processes that create the images are different.  The negatives used to produce these prints ranged from paper to glass to contemporary film materials. Paper prints fall into several categories. In the nineteenth century, two types of paper prints existed: Printing-out papers and developing-out papers. Printing-out papers: light sensitive ...

Making the FlagIn the summer of 1813, Mary Pickersgill (1776–1857) was contracted to sew two flags for Fort McHenry in Baltimore, Maryland. The one that became the Star-Spangled Banner was a 30 x 42–foot garrison flag; the other was a 17 x 25–foot storm flag for use in inclement weather. Pickersgill, a thirty-seven-year-old widow, was an experienced maker of ships’ colors and signal flags. She filled orders for many of the military and merchant ships that sailed into Baltimore’s busy port.Helping Pickersgill make the flags were her thirteen-year-old ...

A Moment of Triumph By the “dawn’s early light” of September 14, 1814, Francis Scott Key, who was aboard a ship several miles distant, could just make out an American flag waving above Fort McHenry. British ships were withdrawing from Baltimore, and Key realized that the United States had survived the battle and stopped the enemy advance. Moved by the sight, he wrote a song celebrating “that star-spangled banner” as a symbol of America’s triumph and endurance.

A View of the Bombardment of Fort McHenry Print by J. Bower, Philadelphia, 1816. One of the soldiers who was in the fort during the 25-hour bombardment wrote, “We were like pigeons tied by the legs to be shot at.”  America’s future seemed more uncertain than ever as the British set their sights on Baltimore, Maryland, a vital seaport. On September 13, 1814, British warships began firing bombs and rockets on Fort McHenry, which protected the city’s harbor. The bombardment continued for twenty-five hours while the nation awaited news of Baltimore’s fate.

At almost every lecture, someone approaches me with a question about a small box or book-like item they found in with the family photographs. If you have one or two in your collection, treat them with care and respect. They are the earliest types of photographs and provide you with a glimpse into life in the mid-nineteenth century. Typically three types of images were placed in cases: daguerrotypes, ambrotypes and tintypes. DAGUERREOTYPES A daguerreotype is a sheet of polished silver covered in light-sensitive chemicals and exposed to light. The resulting portraits ...

The Capital Captured Angered by British interference with American trade, the young United States was intent on reaffirming its recently won independence. Instead, a series of defeats left Americans anxious and demoralized. They were stunned when, on August 24, 1814, British troops marched into Washington, D.C., and set the Capitol building and White House ablaze.