Early photography the Daguerreotype A photographic process invented

Early photography: the Daguerreotype

A photographic process, invented in 1839, in which a picture made on a silver surface sensitized with iodine was developed by exposure to mercury vapor. There about 100 people making daguerreotype photography today.

The Early Days of Daguerreotypy • Frenchman Louis Daguerre invented the daguerreotype process in 1839. In November of that year, the first authorized agent arrived in New York City selling the rights to the process and the equipment to create them. Hundreds of shops were set up within weeks, and within three years even the smallest town offered "daguerrotypy, " which was irresistible to both rich and poor, even at the high price of several dollars a portrait.

• The base of a daguerreotype is a silver-coated plate of copper. There is no negative involved with this process; therefore, each image is one of a kind. The image is also reversed, so wedding rings appear to be on the right hand signs appear to be written backwards. In the first years, sitting for a daguerreotype required being exposed to light for five to seventy minutes.

• Soon, however, the process was improved, and the time required for sitting was reduced to a few seconds. Since this is still a long time to remain still, photographers often used a pole with a two-pronged "fork" that could be adjusted in height, called the "Jenny Lind Posing Headrest, " to keep the subject's head immobile during exposures.

• Rosy cheeks and the gilt of golden jewelry were often hand painted onto the delicate image before being matted, covered in glass, and placed in its decorative case. Daguerreotypes continued to be popular through the 1850 s, when they were edged out by the cheaper tintype.

Boulevard du Temple, Paris, 3. Arrondissement Daguerreotype – Louis Daguerre This is considered to be the first picture of a person.

The best-known image of Edgar Allen Poe was a daguerreotype.

Poe wrote in 1840: “The instrument itself must undoubtedly be regarded as the most important, and perhaps the most extraordinary triumph of modern science…. “Perhaps, if we imagine the distinctness with which an object is reflected in a positively perfect mirror, we come as near the reality as by any other means. For, in truth, the Daguerreotyped plate is infinitely (we use the term advisedly) is infinitely more accurate in its representation than any painting by human hands. If we examine a work of ordinary art, by means of a powerful microscope, all traces of resemblance to nature will disappear — but the closest scrutiny of the photogenic drawing discloses only a more absolute truth, a more perfect identity of aspect with the thing represented. The variations of shade, and the gradations of both linear and ærial perspective are those of truth itself in the supremeness of its perfection. ”

Leaves of Grass 1855 Frontispiece Engraving from the daguerreotype by Gabriel Harrison

Walt Whitman • Democracy • Lack of aesthetic value placed on one thing over another • I love myself for who I am – and you should love yourself that way too • Free verse • Photographic quality to his work – images • Frank sexuality

From the preface to Leaves of Grass “As the attributes of the poets of the kosmos concentre in the real body and soul and in the pleasure of things, they possess the superiority of genuineness over all fiction and romance. As they emit themselves, facts are showered over with light—the daylight is lit with more volatile light— also the deep between the setting and rising sun goes deeper many-fold. Each precise object or condition or combination or process exhibits a beauty…” Sontag: “Whitman thought he was not abolishing beauty but generalizing it. ”

The process of making a contemporary Daguerreotype • http: //howto. wired. com/wiki/Make_a_Dague rreotype