Niepce / Daguerre

As you recall from the first class Joseph Nicéphore Niépce (1765 – 1833) and Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre (1787 – 1851) were both very important figures in the origins of photography. Niepce (pictured directly below) was noted as the first photographer to create a permanent image in 1826.





Niepce's 8 hour exposure made with a camera obscura and pewter coated with bitumen (an asphalt that hardened when exposed to light) from 1826. Keep in mind that Niepce had been working on obtaining a permanent photograph since the late 1700s so it took him a good 30 years or so of work to create his early permanent photographs (which he referred to as heliographs, "sun writings")



Daguerre (pictured above) and the invention of the Daguerreotype: With the Daguerreotypes, images were exposed directly onto a mirror-polished surface of silver bearing a coating of silver halide particles deposited by iodine vapor. (As time went on he started working with other chemicals such as bromine which resulted in shorter exposures) The daguerreotype is a negative image but the mirrored surface of the metal plate reflects the image and makes it appear positive in the proper light. The Daguerreotype was a direct photo process which was unable to be duplicated, meaning 1 final image was all you were going to get.


Daguerreoype of Edgar Allan Poe from the 1840s


early Daguerreotype kit


Advertisement for traveling Daguerreotype photographer E.S. Hayden.

Here is a cool website called the Dag Lab that goes into further explanation of the process of making Daguerreotypes.

The Getty Museum site has some interesting videos as well.