Editorial May 2026

Dear members,

It is May. The light is getting generous, the days are getting longer, and anyone travelling with an old camera during these weeks has every reason to be happy. I feel the same way, and I hear from many conversations that you feel the same way.

Talking about light and its generosity is doubly appropriate this May. Around two hundred years ago, Joseph Nicéphore Niépce set up a camera obscura on a bitumen-coated tin plate in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes near Chalon-sur-Saône and left it exposed to the sun for many hours. The result, "Point de vue du Gras", is the oldest surviving photograph in the world. Two hundred years. It is worth pausing for a moment to imagine how far this patient exposure at the Burgundian window has travelled, right up to our display cases, our bookshelves, our photo antiquaria.

And thus to this very one. Issue 167 has met with an extraordinarily positive response in our ranks; the range of topics, as many of you have written to us, has rarely been so convincing. Our sincere thanks go to the authors and editorial team. I can already tell you now: We are working on No. 168 with great vigour. What I have seen so far goes into depth, covers the whole range of photohistorical topics and is easy to read, even when it gets specialised. Let yourself be surprised.

As tempting as the next issue is, we are currently looking ahead to the annual meeting in August. There, too, a milestone anniversary will play the leading role: 100 years of Zeiss Ikon, embedded in a whole series of other milestone anniversaries in the German photographic and optical industry. Preparations are in full swing and I would like to take this opportunity to make a heartfelt request: Anyone who registers early will make our planning much easier. Details can be found in the newsletter and in the current Photo Antiquaria. The earlier we know who is coming, the better we can organise the meeting in the way our members deserve.

Before we meet again in Germany in August, however, we will be travelling to France. On 6 and 7 June, our treasurer Walter Jekat and I will be travelling to Bièvres, probably the largest photo fair in the world, and it's a good time: we will be meeting up with our French sister club Club Niépce-Lumière there. In this anniversary year, two clubs bearing the names of the pioneers of our beloved discipline are coming together in France of all places: Niépce, who first captured light, and Daguerre, his partner and successor, who made photography accessible to the general public. The transition from May to June could hardly be more beautiful. If you are also in Bièvres, I would be delighted to hear from you; a familiar face makes all the difference at an event of this magnitude, and we first-time visitors would be grateful for a tip or two from a Bièvres veteran.

But we don't want the impressions to stay in France: On 13 June, Walter Jekat and I will be reporting on our trip at the second virtual members' get-together, with pictures, video clips and no doubt an anecdote or two. You will find more details elsewhere in this newsletter.

Two hundred years of photography: a long exposure time, so to speak. What began for Niépce with hours of patiently watching the sun at the window has been reduced to fractions of a second in our days; what has remained is curiosity about what is happening at the other end of the light. This is what our associations, our meetings, our Photo Antiquaria, and this early summer in particular our encounters in Bièvres and on 13 June at the virtual regulars' table stand for. I would like to invite you all to join us.

I wish you a stimulating read and a photographically productive May.

With best regards

Klaus Herrmann
Chairman of the Club Daguerre e.V.