My daguerreotypes of collected books are made to be read on various levels.

On a literal level, daguerreotypes traditionally have been used for portraiture. I feel an obligation to honor this history.

On an abstract level, the collected & selected books stand in for their owners. The books imply traits of their collector -- interests, tastes, sentiments, aesthetics, areas of expertise & curiosity.

At a greater degree of abstraction, the pictured books represent their collector's world view. Truly, what one learns structures one's experiences. What one sees can only be what one has learned to look for.

And on a physical plane, the daguerreotypes themselves are luscious, weighty, gilded objects, encapsulating a floating, nearly three-dimensional, world. Simultaneously hyper-real and oddly strange, daguerreotypes have a distinctive authority and authenticity, presenting the viewer an unfamiliar yet perfectly true reality.

A technical question ... Why is the type reversed in my images? As through the eye, light lands on the daguerreotype plate upside down and backwards. Our brains automatically flip information transmitted by rods and cones; the daguerroetype plate, howeer, can only record what it receives.