(This daguerreotype photo was taken by Daguerre one mornin...)
This daguerreotype photo was taken by Daguerre one morning in 1838. It is one of the earliest photographs of people that can be reliably dated to when it has been made.
Louis Daguerre was a French artist, physicist, and photographer. He is considered to be the inventor of the daguerreotype process of photography.
Background
Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre was born in a small town near Paris, France on November 18, 1787. It is believed that the surname Daguerre originated in Spain. It derived from the Basque word Ager, which means prominent or visible. Daguerre’s father was a recognized French royalist, and even named one of his daughters after Marie Antoinette.
Education
Growing up in Orléans, Daguerre’s education was rather limited due to the facts that he grew up in the years after the French Revolution and his family was not wealthy. Fortunately, his father noticed that Daguerre has a talent for drawing and painting and signed him up to study with Pierre Prévost, the first French panorama painter. He was apprenticed in architecture, theatre design, and panoramic painting. In 1804, Daguerre decided to come back to Paris to study stage design.
Career
Daguerre became an assistant stage designer in a theatre in Paris in 1804. He showed great skill when it comes to theatrical illusion, so it wasn’t long before he became lighting director for several theatres. He also did some scene painting for Opera productions.
He worked with Pierre Prévost, the first French painter of panoramas. Daguerre used his expertise to develop a new technique called the Diorama to offer entertainment to the audience in Paris. The first Diorama theatre proved to be a big success, as people would wait for hours to see large paintings on a translucent screen that were simulating movement and transforming when you look at them from different angles. This success led him to open another Diorama exhibit in London, in a theatre that eventually burned down in 1839. However, the popularity of this type of entertainment dropped significantly thanks to the cholera outbreak in Paris in 1832, so Daguerre had to declare bankruptcy.
Daguerre partnered with another pioneer of photography Nicéphore Niépce in 1829. Two inventors worked together on a process that would lead to making world’s first permanent photographs. Niépce suddenly passed away in 1833 but Daguerre continued with experiments. It was not until 1839 when he decided to present the world the daguerreotype process, which enabled making permanent pictures on a silver-coated copper plate. After failing to find private inventors, Daguerre presented general details of the process at the French Academy of Sciences, retaining all the important details. The French Government soon bought daguerreotype process in exchange for lifelong pensions for him and Isidore, Niépce’s son. The invention was given as a “gift from France to the world” and all the instructions were revealed publicly.
The daguerreotype process was conducted by exposing image directly onto a mirror-polished copper plate, which has to be coated with the silver halide particles deposited by iodine vapor. Although the technique was bad for the health of the one conducting the process, the daguerreotype was praised as one of the cutting edge processes of its time.
(This daguerreotype photo was taken by Daguerre one mornin...)
1838
Religion
Daguerre was born in France so he is presumed to have been a Christian. A proof to support this claim can be found in the fact that he made a diorama for the Saint Gervais-Saint Protais church in Bry-sur-Marne, the town he retired to in 1839.
Views
Quotations:
"I have seized the light. I have arrested its flight."
"The daguerreotype consists in the spontaneous reproduction of the images of nature received in the camera obscura, not with their colors, but with very fine gradation of tones."
"The daguerreotype is not merely an instrument which serves to draw Nature; on the contrary it is a chemical and physical process which gives her the power to reproduce herself."
Membership
Daguerre was a member of National Academy of Design.
Personality
Despite coming from a family that supported French Royalists, Daguerre didn't share such strong beliefs. Instead, he focused on his career and affection for art, which he showed ever since he was little. His love for innovation can be seen in numerous experiments he conducted, which led to the discovery of daguerreotype process, something he is remembered by even today.
Physical Characteristics:
Daguerre was known for his moustache and a hairstyle characteristic for men at that time.
Interests
Photography, Art, Painting, Physics, Chemistry
Connections
Louis Daguerre married Louise Georgina Arrow-Smith in 1810.