The Daguerreotype

By Regina Clarke

Hallucination, or reality?

Browsing in an old shop, Professor Harry Inman comes across the image of a famous hotel in Saratoga Springs, NY, taken on a fragile metal plate in 1847, an actual daguerreotype from the origins of early photography. The small, framed image becomes an unexpected window into the past, one that pulls him literally into another time and space.

It is a world that appears increasingly mesmerizing and seductive, the Saratoga Springs of grand hotels and Victorian glamour, of people strolling in summer along tree-lined boulevards that no longer exist. The music he hears enchants him. Each visit brings him welcome release from the stress and dullness of his ordinary life. Most startling, on one such visit Harry encounters the man who created the daguerreotype he owns--who acknowledges Harry as if he knows him. How?

He doesn't have time to ask. His visits are only brief ones, and the daguerreotype, already corrupted, is fading. He must make a decision, before the image disappears.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Crossing Paths Press
• Release date: Oct 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781393351856

Book preview

THE DAGUERREOTYPE

Copyright © by Regina Clarke (2014, 2016)

Second Edition.

All rights reserved.

Published by Crossing Paths Press

All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons existing or who used to exist is purely coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher or author.

Cover design and layout by Brenda Clarke

See more of her brilliant art at https://www.flickr.com/photos/brenda-starr/

(Postcard view of the Grand Union Hotel from personal archives)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Title Page and Copyright

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BEGIN READING

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Dear Reader

Other Books By This Author

About the Author

"E ach plate was unique . It first required a thin layer of silver. Fumes from iodine crystals ensured it was light sensitive. Once the plate had been exposed, the artist would develop the image using mercury fumes. The last step was to fix the image, which could be done using ordinary salt."

The speaker used his laser pointer to show the various stages of the process to his audience. They were a restless crowd, about as interested in the history he was offering, he knew, as the spider he’d observed making a web at the base of the lecturn.

I’ll be glad to answer any questions. It was a required statement but a doubtful one, he thought, looking out at the sea of faces bent to their handhelds, engrossed in their texting. The class of 2016 didn’t thrill him, but their behavior wasn’t just a lack of respect, he mused. Maybe, in fact, that had nothing to do with it. It was more likely an engrained lack of curiosity, a generational incapacity to realize how vast the world around them was, or maybe, he considered as he watched them, they knew it all too well, and it was a fear of what that world was. He could understand that, if it were so.

How did they get the image, again? The question came from a young woman in the third row. It startled him enough to discover someone was listening to him that for a moment he didn’t answer.

They used the camera obscura, he began.

Hey, I know them! Tracyanne’s band from Scotland! The voice echoed from somewhere in the middle of the hall. Laughter followed. The young woman in the third row turned around and called out Not that camera obscura, idiot. More laughter.

He glanced around the room. A few had stopped what they were doing and were paying attention, much to his surprise.

Camera obscura is Latin for ‘dark chamber,’ he went on, encouraged, and its principles have been known for over two thousand years. Light from a setting or view outside is projected through a pinhole into a dark space where the setting then appears on the opposite wall. This can be an entire room or a small box. It was the inspiration for Daguerre, and thus a major part of his invention of the daguerreotype I’ve been describing.

So what, teacher? Another anonymous voice called out. A responsive titter