The first task this week was to choose one of many camera techniques used throughout history and research it more in depth. After that, we were asked to write a report on how it contributed to what photography is today, in between 500-1000 words.
My technique of choice is daguerrotype. Daguerreotype was invented by Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre, in 1839. It was a middle “step” between the old style Camera obscura (translated to “a dark room”), and the objective photography by Josef Maximilian Petzval.
The process of daguerreotype involves a long process consisting of:
1. A copper plate, that gets polished and thereafter silverplated.
2. The plate gets polished once more, so that it becomes completely clean and contains no scratches or defects.
3. It is after that placed into the box shown above, which contains ion.
4. the ion gasses reacting with the silver create a chemical reaction when in contact silver, and create a light-sensitive silver iodide on the plate.
5. The plate can then be placed in a tank with mercury, and creates the photo.
6. The photo was then made permanent by dipping it into sodium sulfate.
This type of photography required the subject to sit still for 5 or more minutes, and the subject often needed to lean onto something or be supported by metal braces to be able to hold completely still during the process.
An important downside to this type of photo, was that the daguerreotype must be displayed in just the right angle to be visible, otherwise it all disappears, and the silver plate basically reverts to a mirror.
Daguerreotype is classed as one of the foundational mediums of photography and it changed the use of photography across the whole world. Before this, there was no way of knowing someones true appearance unless you met them in real life. In perspective, it meant that people didn’t know the appearance of their previous family members, their countries leaders and there was no way of preserving our collective history.
Before daguerreotype, there was no easy access to portraiture, and getting a portrait done by a professional painter back then, cost a small fortune. These portraits could now also more accurately display the subjects they depict, much faster and for a cheaper price. This impacted the economy of many painters, which after a while inevitably abandoned painting, and took up daguerreotype. This was much easier to perform than years of studying and learning traditional portraiture art, by just learning the correct formulations of chemicals, having the right materials and performing the correct steps of the process in the correct order.
In a way, daguerreotype enriched the history of man, by providing us with accurate and accessible photography, allowing us to depict important historical events, and humans who would’ve otherwise remained absent from our visual narrative of history.
The daguerreotype also changed the common use of portraiture, and may have contributed to the way we use identification documents today, as well as made photography accessible for everyone at the time, regardless of income.
In 2018, the National Portrait Gallery showcased an interesting selection of mid-19th century daguerrotypes. The museum was celebrating the impact these early images made on the field of portraiture. Here is an example:
Resources:
https://npg.si.edu/exhibition/daguerreotypes-five-decades-collecting
https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotypi
The Daguerreotype
Evi Jaman 