January 20
Developing Techniques
Joseph Nicephore Niepce. View
from His Window at Le Gras. c. 1826. Heliograph.
Bajac,
Quentin. The Invention of Photography. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York.
2002.
Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre
Bajac,
Quentin. The Invention of Photography. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York.
2002.
| 1829 | Daguerre and Niepce agree to share all knowledge, honor and profit from their collaborative invention |
| 1831 | Daguerre discovered that silver iodide was light sensitive |
| 1833 | Niepece died of a stroke |
| 1834 | Daguerre began experiementing with new process |
| Used professional camera with quality lens | |
| Used silver-plated sheet of copper sensitized with silver iodide | |
| Reduced exposure time to 20 to 30 minutes | |
| 1835 | Daguerre succeeds in permanently fixing an image |
Louis
Jacques Mande Daguerre. Still Life in Studio. 1837. Daguerreotype. |
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Used
silver-plated sheet of copper |
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Placed
silver side down over box containing iodine |
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| Iodine fumes reacted with the silver to create light sensitive silver iodide on the surface of the plate | ||
Exposed
the plate in a camera obscura for several hours |
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| No image visible afterwards | ||
Exposed
plate to fumes from heated mercury |
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| Image became visible | ||
Plate
bathed in strong solution of table salt |
||
| Halted the light sensitivity of the silver iodide | ||
Plate
washed in water |
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Louis
Jacques Mande Daguerre. Le Boulevard Du Temple. c. 1837. Daguerreotype.
Preble, Duane, Sarah Preble and Patrick Frank. Artforms. Seventh ed. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2002.
|
 |
Louis
Jacques Mande Daguerre. Le Boulevard Du Temple. c. 1837. Daguerreotype. |
Attributed to Louis
Jacques Mande Daguerre. Daguerreotype of M. Huet?. 1837. |
Sir John Frederick William Herschel provides the final element necessary when he discovers that hyposulphite of soda will arrest the action of light, making photographic images permanent |
Julia Margaret Cameron. Sir John Frederick William Herschel. 1867. |
hyposulphite of soda acts as a fixer, removing unexposed silver halide, and therefore preventing any further reaction of the silver salts |
|
Later coins the term photography = light writing |
|
and applies the terms "positive" and "negative" |
|
Hippolyte Bayard. Plaster Casts. c. 1839. |
1838 | Daguerre hires Count Francois Arago, Secretary of the Academy of Sciences, to promote invention and secure copyright from government | |
| 1839 | Hippolyte Bayard makes direct positives on sensitized paper | ||
| Exposes paper with silver chloride emulsion to light | |||
| Soaks paper in potassium iodide | |||
| Exposes paper in obscura about 12 minutes | |||
| Washes paper in bath of hyposulphite of soda | |||
| Bayard shows examples of prints to Count Arago | |||
| Arago pressures Bayard not to publish results of his experiments | |||
| January 9, 1839 | Arago announces Daguerre's process to a joint session of the Academy of Science and the Academy of Fine Art | |
| August 19, 1839 | Daguerre's process is announced to the public and Daguerre receives French patent on his process | |
| Daguerre receives lifetime pension from French government | ||
| Daguerre applies for English patent on the process | ||
| Daguerre claims full credit for the invention (Niepce goes unrecognized for years) | ||
| Niepce's son has to sue the government for compensation for his part in Daguerre's process | ||
William Henry Fox Talbot. Botanical Specimen. 1839. Photogenic drawing.
Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre. Triptych with three daguerreotypes presented to King Ludwig I of Bavaria. 1839.
Koetzle, Hans-Michael. Photo Icons: The Story Behind the Pictures. Volume 1. Koln: Taschen, 2002.
Pierre Gusttave
Joly de Ltbiniere. The Propylaea at Athens. Aquatint engraving from
a daguerreotype. 1839.
Newhall, Beaumont. The History of Photography.
The Museum of Modern Art, New York. 1982.
| June 1839 | Bayard exhibits 30 of his direct positive prints in Paris |
Hippolyte Bayard. Self-Portrait as a Drowned Man. 1840. Direct paper positive. |
First public exhibition of photographic images |
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Bayard given small cash award |
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"The
corpse you see is that of M. Bayard… The Academy, the King and
all those who have seen his pictures admired them, just as you do…
This has brought him prestige, but not a penny. The government, which
has supported M. Daguerre more than is necessary, declared it could
do nothing for M. Bayard, and the unhappy man drowned himself…he
has been at the morgue for several days, and no one has recognized him.
Ladies and gentlemen, you'd better pass along for fear of offending
your sense of smell, for as you can observe, the face and hands of the
gentleman are beginning to decay." - Hippolyte Bayard |
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The
daguerreotype, "the mirror with a memory." - Oliver Wendell Holmes |
Properties of the daguerreotype: |
Mirror view of the original scene |
Shiny, mirror-like surface |
Very delicate, one-of-a-kind direct positive image |
Daguerreotype
drawbacks : |
Long exposure
time |
Beyond the average person's means |
Cameras
were large and cumbersome |
Daguerre's first
camera
Bajac,
Quentin. The Invention of Photography. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York.
2002.
By the end of
1840 three major improvements made: |
Cameras manufactured with better quality lens |
More light-sensitive
plates developed |
Enriched
tones of daguerreotype image with gilding |
Construction of a daguerreotype: hinged, velvet-lined case, plate, frame, matte, and glass.
Daguerreotype Mania
Theodore Maurisset. Fantasies: La Daguerreotypemanie. 1839. |
1840 | First commercial daguerreotype studios open in New York and Paris |
| 1841 | First studios in London | |
| 1860s | 200 studios in New York and 400 in Paris | |
| 1865 | 284 studios in London | |
Dagnan-Bouveret. Wedding at the Photographer's. 1879.
Bajac,
Quentin. The Invention of Photography. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York.
2002.
Daguerreotype studio
apparatus |
Jenny Lind Headrest. 1851. |
John Draper. Miss
Dorothy Catherine Draper. c. 1840. Daguerreotype.
Rosenblum,
Naomi. A World History of Photography. Abbeville Press, New York. 1989.
Samuel Morse introduces the daguerreotype to the US in early 1840s |
"The American Process" |
Reduced exposure time to under a minute |
Used cheaper chemicals |
Portrait Galleries
Nadar's Portrait
Studio on the Boulevard des Capucines. 1860.
Bajac,
Quentin. The Invention of Photography. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York.
2002.
A. Berghaus. M.
B. Brady's New Photographic Gallery,New York. 1861. Engraving.
Rosenblum,
Naomi. A World History of Photography. Abbeville Press, New York. 1989.
Southworth and Hawes. Rollin Heber Neal (Pastor of the First Baptist Church, Boston). c. 1850. Daguerreotype.
John Draper. Miss Dorothy Catherine Draper. c.1840. Daguerreotype. |
Southworth and Hawes. Rollin Heber Neal (Pastor of the First Baptist Church, Boston). c. 1850. Daguerreotype. |
Southworth and Hawes. Young Girl. c. 1850. Daguerreotype.
http://museum.icp.org/museum/exhibitions/southworth_hawes/images/pic_portrait_02.jpg
More Southworth and Hawes images
Picture Factories
Behind the scenes
in a picture factory.
Bajac,
Quentin. The Invention of Photography. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York.
2002.
Daguerreotype Saloons
Daguerreotype saloon.
c. 1850.
Bajac,
Quentin. The Invention of Photography. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York.
2002.
The blossoming popularity and accessibility of the daguerreotype greatly influenced the emergence of new classes of image makers, which then encouraged the development of new classes of images... |
Occupation Portraits
Carl Ferdinand Stelzner. Mother Albers, The Family Vegetable Woman. c. 1845. Daguerreotype.
Rosenblum,
Naomi. A World History of Photography. Abbeville Press, New York. 1989.
More occupational daguerreotypes
Vacation Pictures
Platt D. Babbitt. Tourists Viewing Niagara Falls from Prospect Point. c. 1855.
Post-Mortem Portraits
Unknown Photographer. Post-Mortem Portrait, Woman Holding Baby. c. 1855. Daguerreotype.
Photographer Unknown. Father and Mother Holding a Dead Child. c. 1850 - 1860s. Daguerreotype.
Marien, Mary Warner. Photography: A cultural History. Second edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006.
Pornography
Unknown. Two Nude Women Embracing . c. 1848. Daguerreotype.
Eugene Durieu. Academie de l'Album Delacroix reunissant. 1853 - 54. Paper print.
Marien, Mary Warner. Photography: A cultural History. Second edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006.
William Henry Fox Talbot
1800 - 1877
William Henry Fox
Talbot. c. 1844. Daguerreotype.
Rosenblum,
Naomi. A World History of Photography. Abbeville Press, New York. 1989.
William
Henry Fox Talbot. Latticed Window at Lacock Abbey. 1835. Photogenic
drawing.
Marien, Mary Warner. Photography: A cultural History. Second edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2006.
Enhanced view of Talbot's window
http://www.portfolio.mvm.ed.ac.uk/studentwebs/session2/group60/history.htm
William Henry Fox Talbot. 1837.
Photogenic Drawing.
Bajac,
Quentin. The Invention of Photography. Harry N. Abrams, Inc., New York.
2002.
Talbot produced the first successful negative on paper in 1835 |
Calotype process: |
Soaked paper in a solution of sodium chloride, then a solution of silver nitrate |
Repeated process several times to create a dense concentration of chemicals |
Exposed wet sheet of iodized paper to light (cutting exposure time from 1 hour to 10 minutes) |
Image fixed with either potassium iodide or sodium chloride |
In the following years, Talbot discovered that an invisible, "latent image" could be developed with gallic acid |
Began coating paper with wax to make it more translucent |
Negative was contact printed onto another sheet of sesnsitized paper |
the calotype
established a negative/ positive printmaking system |
|
1. Negative
image produced by exposing light-sensitive paper |
|
2. Positive
image produced by contact printing onto another piece of paper |
|
Negative Image |
Positive Image |
 |
 |
David Octavius Hill and Robert
Adamson. Lady Elizabeth Eastlake. c. 1845. Calotype.
|
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Southworth and Hawes. Rollin Heber Neal (Pastor of the First Baptist Church, Boston). c. 1850. Daguerreotype. |
William Henry Fox Talbot. Man and Woman sitting on garden wall in Lacock Abbey. 1835. Reproduction of calotype image. |
Daguerreotyp
vs. Calotype |
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Daguerreotype |
Calotype |
|
Surface |
Mirror-like |
Matte |
Highly detailed |
Creates contrast
and mass |
|
Process |
One step |
Two step |
Exposure time |
Few seconds |
Few minutes |
Reproducibiltiy |
Produced one-of-a-kind
image |
Produced infinite
number of copies |
Sturdiness |
Fragile |
Hardy |
Price |
Somewhat expensive
if done at high quality studio |
Relatively inexpensive |
Inventors |
Experienced
businessman |
Scientist
and intellectual |
The Pencil of Nature = first book to include photographic images
Talbot's printing operation. c. 1845.
William
Fox Talbot. The Open Door. 1843. Salted paper print from calotype negative.
http://robtaborn.homestead.com/BroomTalbot.jpg
