Initiating his exploration of the daguerreotype in San Francisco in 1994, Spagnoli experimented with nineteenth-century materials and studied the effects achieved by early practitioners to understand the technical aspects of the process, as well as its expressive and visual potential as a medium.
The project features views of the metropolis as well as images of historically significant events including the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11, the vigil following the disappearance of John F. Kennedy, Jr., and Times Square at midnight on the eve of the new millennium.
In his “Photomicrograph” series Spagnoli explores how people, photographed at great distances onto a small piece of film and enlarged many times, are readable as human forms from the most minimal information.
In “Pantheon,” a recent series of color photographs, Spagnoli placed a radiating sun at the center of each image, the effect of which is enhanced by his use of a pinhole camera.
Of his work, Spagnoli comments, “Ultimately my use of various materials and methods is centered in my desire to make complicated stories out of the everyday world, which is my apparent subject matter.