Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre

DAGUERROTYPE: THE FIRST PRACTICAL PHOTOGRAPHIC PROCESS

French artist and chemist, Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (November 18, 1787 – July 10, 1851) invented the daguerreotype process of photography. Born in Cormeilles-en-Parisis, Val-d’Oise, France, Daguerre studied architecture, theater design, and panoramic painting. Skilled in theatrical illusion, he became a known designer for the theater. In 1822, Daguerre invented the Diorama, a mobile theatre device.

In 1829, Daguerre partnered with Joseph Niépce, a partnership that lasted until Niépce suddenly died four years later.

Daguerre was familiar with using the camera obscura and was obsessed with making the image permanent. Following years of experimentation, in 1839, Daguerre perfected the daguerrotype process in photography. The French Government acquired the license of the process, which was published in the official bulletin of the French Academy of Sciences the same year, describing it as a gift “Free to the World”.

Naomi Rosenblum’s A world history of photography (1997) Third Edition. pg. 651. Aberville Press—defines the daguerrotype process: the first practical photographic process in which an image is formed on a copper plate with highly polished silver that is sensitized by fumes of iodine to form a light sensitive coding of silver iodine. Following exposure the latent image is developed in mercury paper, resulting in a highly detailed image. It is a unique, having no negative for replication.

View of the Boulevard du Temple, Paris, 1838. By Louis Jacques Mandé Daguerre

The image above titled View of the Boulevard du Temple, Paris by Louis Daguerre was the first photograph ever made of a person. Although this image shows what seems to be an empty street, if you look closer, you will see a man standing with his foot resting against what appears to be a pump. Other historians have said that you can see the man with a boy shining his shoes at the bottom left, and two people sitting at a table nearby on the right. The figures who remained still were captured in the image (the one man being the most definable); the rest of the figures or the moving traffic did not appear due to the relatively long exposure (reportedly ten minutes).

The American painter and inventor, Samuel F.B. Morse was in Paris when the news of Daguerre’s process was announced by the French Academy. Morse, a painter who is best known as the inventor of the telegraph and Morse Code, met Daguerre. He later wrote a letter to his brother, who, as editor of the New York Observer, published it in the April 19, 1839 edition. In the letter he described the invention as one of the most beautiful discoveries of the age.

Below an excerpt from Morse’s letter:

They are produced on a metallic surface, the principal pieces, about seven inches by five, and they resemble aquatint engravings, for they are in simple chiaro-oscura, and not in colors. But the exquisite minuteness of the delineation cannot be conceived. No painting or engraving ever approached it. For example: In a view up the street, a distant sign would be perceived, and the eye could just discern that there were lines of letters upon it, but so minute as not to be read with the naked eye. By the assistance of a powerful lens, which magnified fifty times, applied to the delineation, every letter was clearly and distinctly legible, and so were the minutest breaks and lines in the walls of the buildings; and the pavements of the street. The effect of the lens upon the picture was in a great degree like that of the telescope in nature.

Objects moving are not impressed. The Boulevard, so constantly filled with a moving throng of pedestrians and carriages was perfectly solitary, except an individual who was having his boots brushed. His feet were compelled, of course, to be stationary for some time, one being on the box of the boot black, and the other on the ground. Consequently his boots and legs were well defined, but he is without body or head, because these were in motion.

Boulevard du Temple inspired Daguerre to continue perfecting the process of portraiture. It was evident that to accomplish a portrait he would need to reduce the exposure time significantly. The daguerreotype was not the only photographic method available; still, it contributed by cutting production time dramatically, making commercial photography a viable business. One setback to the process was that once fixed, the image could not be reproduced.

A daguerrotype was low in contrast (predominantly half tones) but with fine detail. During its popularity, celebrities and political figures wanted their portraits taken by daguerreotypists, specially in major cities. Although the public was encouraged to also be photographed, due to its high cost, many could not afford it. Daguerrotypes were so famous that by 1850, there were more than seventy daguerreotype studios in New York City alone.

Its popularity lasted around ten years. In the late 1850s, its demand began to decline when the ambrotype, a faster and less expensive photographic process, became available.

The invention of the daguerrotype revolutionized photography. Daguerre and Niépce’s son received a pension from the Government in exchange for sharing the details of the invention. In 1851, Daguerre died at the age of sixty-three in Bry-sur-Marne, France.

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