Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre - Inventor of the Daguerreotype

Recognizing that the experiments of Niepce were fundamental to the development of his own ideas, Daguerre formed a partnership with the ailing inventor in 1829. Four years later Niepce died and his son, Isidore, took his place as Daguerre's partner. Early in 1839, a supporter of Daguerre, astronomer and physicist Dominique Francois Arago, demonstrated their invention-the daguerreotype - before the French Academy of Sciences. Daguerre was awarded an annual appropriation of six thousand francs and the young Niepce an annuity of four thousand francs. In return, the two inventors were to "place in the hands of the Ministry of the Interior a sealed package containing the history and most detailed and exact description of the invention."

On August 19, 1839, Arago made public the technical details of the daguerreotype, declaring: "France has adopted this discovery and from the first has shown her pride in being able to donate it generously to the whole world." Daguerre promptly published a seventy-nine-page booklet describing the process at length. The public's reaction was one of wild enthusiasm. Opticians' shops throughout Paris were besieged with excited amateurs clamoring to buy the necessary daguerreotype apparatus. Word of the fabulous invention spread quickly, and within months Daguerre's pamphlet had been translated and reproduced in thirty editions and distributed in a score of cities, among them London, Edinburgh, New York, Paris, Philadelphia, and Madrid. Even in faraway Russia, St. Petersburg wanted copies.

The daguerreotype reproduced here, made in 1839, claimed a unique distinction. It is heralded as the first photograph to capture the image, however faint, of a human being. Early daguerreotypes required exposures of varying lengths depending on the strength of the sun and the time of day. On this memorable day, the Boulevard du Temple was far from empty, as the photograph suggests. Strolling pedestrians and clattering carriages simply moved too quickly for their images to be recorded. The anonymous gentleman having his boots shined stood still just long enough for Daguerre to capture his outline in this now famous cityscape.

The fastidious Parisian achieved immortality as the first human being ever to have his picture taken. Soon formal portraits were much in demand. Just a few months after Daguerre's announcement, the American inventor Samuel F. B. Morse succeeded in making one of the world's first daguerreotype portraits. In reporting his triumph, Morse described how his wife and daughter sat "from ten to twenty minutes... on the roof of a building, in the full sunlight, with the eyes closed." The process was excruciating for all concerned. Within a year vast improvements had been made. Photographic studios proliferated as the world rushed to have its picture taken - probably one of the most pleasant and most harmless pastimes ever indulged.

1850

A World History of Photography [Paperback]

A World History of Photography [Paperback]