Caleb Warnock

If the sticky yellow ooze on display at Camp Floyd on Saturday was any indication, creating the 150-year-old daguerreotype photos in the museum here may have been akin to a miracle.

In the 1850s, an elaborate daguerreotype photo process was used to capture historic images of Camp Floyd, which are now on display at the Camp Floyd/ Stagecoach Inn State Park museum. Hoping to revive that art, the park recently purchased a refurbished 1859 daguerreotype camera using $1,000 in donations from visitors.

The huge wooden camera, etched on the lens with the inscription "No. 5674, Holmes, Booth & Haydens, New York," was used for the first time in over a century on Saturday, but the results were cloudy.

Over several hours, park employee Jared Pedroza mixed silver nitrate, local creek water, potassium iodide and cadmium bromide, among other chemicals, to form a corn syrup-like ooze which was spread over a glass plate, tempered in a chemical bath, and placed in a wooden box using a portable darkroom built by park staff.

The box containing the glass plate was then inserted into the daguerreotype camera, where the lens cap was removed and a wooden lever pulled to expose the plate to light.

The first try ended in a sticky yellow mess when the corn syrup-like layer on the plate slide off in the chemical bath before the plate could even be put in the camera.

The second try, which was exposed to light in the camera for five seconds before being processed in the dark room, bore the image of a yellow cloud of streaks -- not Fairfield's historic schoolhouse, at which the camera had been pointed.

"We've got a big piece of yellow," said a frustrated Pedroza as he emerged from the dark room with the glass plate.

The next try, exposed for 30 seconds, bore no image, not even yellow streaks. A fourth try, exposed for three minutes, produced a cloud of creamy streaks. A fifth try, exposed for six minutes, ended when the corn syrup-like layer slid off the glass into a sticky pile of goo in the final chemical bath.

"I just want to thank everyone for their patience," said Pedroza to those gathered. "You've come all this way to watch me make a fool of myself."

"Not at all," said Paul Topham of Pleasant Grove, who had come as part of a first-of-its-kind daguerreotype workshop at the park. "We've all done something new before."

Pedroza said the final photo appeared to have produced a faint, partial image of the school in the dark room before it slid of the glass plate, ruined.

"This is my second time and I'll be back a third," said Robert Williams of Pleasant Grove, who attended a lecture about the camera at Camp Floyd last week.

Dressed in brown wool pants, a white cotton shirt and a felt hat, Williams posed for each of the attempted photos except the last, hoping to be part of the first modern photo produced by the historic camera.

He sat out the last photo because the previous try -- which required him to stand without moving for three minutes -- burned his eyes in the sun, he said.

Reviving such old technology is an art, not a science, and will take time and patience, Williams said.

"Instead of recording history, you guys are going to make history," he said. "I would guess this was a lot like magic. You just have to play with it to make it work."

Pedroza said he will continue to practice the elaborate process over the next few weeks and hopes to hold another workshop for the public in about a month if he can perfect the photo-making process.

The Commissary Museum at Camp Floyd/ Stagecoach Inn State Park in Fairfield is open Monday through Saturday, 9 a.m. through 5 p.m. Admission fees are $2 per person or $6 per family. For information, call 768-8932.

Caleb Warnock can be reached at 443-3263 or cwarnock@heraldextra.com.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page B4.