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For some artists, the idea that they are contributing to art history is the most important aspect of making art. For others, merely seeing themselves as part of that history isn't enough. There are those who choose to travel back in time, so to speak, creating their own masterworks in much the same way as the old masters did: Stretching their own canvas, grinding their own pigments, creating their own binders.

But the practice isn't limited to painting. Currently an exhibition on display in Dormont proves that in a most peculiar way. Featuring more than 70 contemporary daguerreotypes by 17 artists from the U.S., Canada, England and France, the exhibition "Daguerreian Niche: Works by Contemporary Artists" offers delightful proof that what's old can be made new again.

Pioneered by French artists and photographers Joseph-Nicephore Niepce (1765-1833) and Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre (1787-1851), after whom the process is named, a daguerreotype is one-of-a-kind photographic image created by first polishing a small, silver-coated copper plate to a mirror finish and then exposing it to a cocktail of hazardous chemicals to initially sensitize, then develop the image. The result is a ghost-like, mirror image that can best be seen by holding the plate at an angle to a light source.

Featured at the recently completed world headquarters of The Daguerreian Society -- www.daguerre.org -- an organization founded in 1988 that now boasts more than 900 daguerreotype enthusiasts, this exhibition of contemporary daguerreotype photographs is a tour de force of creativity that ranges from delicate portraits and landscapes to wildly experimental works that push the limits of the process.

For example, there's a haunting triptych of a ghostly woman chasing after a key, by Christopher Lovenguth of New York City; sweeping vistas of Western landscapes, by Eric Rickart of Salt Lake City; assemblage sculptures made of found objects and daguerreotypes, by Hilary Treadwell of Providence, Rhose Island; even a 3-D image of a Greek statue, by David Burder of England.

The first photographic art form, the daguerreotype was first popularized in the 1840s and '50s, but soon lost favor to emulsion photographs created on glass and paper, which were much easier and less toxic to create. Only marginally practiced throughout the mid-20th century, the daguerreotype process wasn't made popular again until the 1980s.

"It's not like an emulsion," says the current president of The Daguerreian Society, Mark Johnson, who served as co-curator of this exhibition along with Linda Benedict-Jones, executive director of Silver Eye Center for Photography.

"It's actually physical bumps of mercury and silver that create the image. So, it gives you a different appearance when looking at the image. It's more dimensional. It's sort of like looking at snow where it has this crystalline structure to it."

For that reason, the daguerreotypes on display in this exhibition are specially lighted at an angle to reveal the images. Though the challenge of seeing the images has been eliminated here, Johnson says the challenge of creating the images is what attracts these artists to the daguerreotype process. In fact, he says it can take several attempts to get a single image.

"There's so much involved," Johnson says. "You pretty much have to shoot three to get one good one."

Such challenges don't deter the artists from experimenting, which is obvious in this exhibition where one can find such unusual images as John Hurlock's "Talbot," which features a fish propped up in an antique headstand once used by mid-19th century daguerreotype sitters, and an image of a speeding 1951 Jeepster rolling to a stop, which was captured by Tom Young of Colorado and Charlie Schreiner of Michigan.

Schreiner says of the image, "This was our second attempt, a 30-second exposure in two 15-second segments. When we pulled it out of the mercury and cleared it, we looked at each other, laughed, shook hands and laughed some more."

But regardless of their motivations, nearly all of the artists in this exhibition agree that, in the age of digital photography, creating daguerreotypes offers a simple pleasure that cannot be matched.

As participating photographer Levon Register of Athens, Ga., so elegantly put it, "In today's world, with everything geared to the speed of electronics, computers and cable technology, one gets the feeling that life is only a fleeting speck of light. How does one slow this fast paced world, to absorb the beauty and grace that abounds within this place? One answer might be in the way we record what we feel or see. For me, thanks to L.J.M. Daguerre, I have chosen to seize the light."

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