About the Artist

My work is informed by 19th and early 20th century photographic processes and the technologies that drove them. I describe the foundation of my practice as Research Art; informed and guided by the history of process and technology and expressed through the use of those same practices for research and the making of contemporary work. I approach my work as an amalgamation of photographer, recreation artist, endurance artist, researcher and time traveler.

I am primarily a contemporary daguerreotypist and I use the process for making contemporary work and in conservation and curatorial research. My current projects focus on the practices and early achievements in daguerreotypy by Robert Cornelius and Samuel Morse, the origins of photomicrography and astrophotography through John William Draper’s daguerreotype photomicrographs and his daguerreotype astrophotography, and the origins of photogravure through Fizeau’s Direct Etch from daguerreotype process. I also work with the comparatively obscure but equally relevant and historically significant competing paper direct positive process of Hippolyte Bayard.

I consult on various topics for the conservation of daguerreotypes and early photographic cameras, apparatus, and optics. I specialize in collections-based research, specifically the handling and use of historical photographic artifacts in museum and institutional collections for conservation and curatorial research. I am an expert consultant for the Library of Congress and am working on research projects with the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. My early background also includes assistantships for photographers Stephen Berkman, Michael A. Smith, Donna Ferrato, and Arlene Gottfried.

My work is in the permanent collections of the Getty Museum and the Library of Congress.