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Louis Jaques Daguerre(1799-1851)became good friends of Joseph Niepce, since the two of them were conducting similiar research in early-photography. The two men often shared ideas until Niepce died of a stroke in 1833. Daguerre persevered, and on January 7th, 1839, his perfected process was presented to the French Academy of Sciences. The members marveled at the clarity and minute detail of his daguerreotype prints and the incredible accurracy of the images. His luminous, vibrant image was a bas-relief of mercury and silver compounds that varied in density in direct proportion to the amount of light that had struck the plate during exposure. In one giant leap, the technology for making pictures by machine was realized. Cries of fraud were stilled after the French Government acquired Daguerre's process and the Academy of Sciences made it available to the public. In one early year, a half-million daguerreotypes were made in Paris.Daguerreotypes had limitations, for each plate was a one-of-a-kind image of predetermined size, and the process required meticulous polishing, sensitizing, and development. The polished surface had a tendency to produce glare, and unless it was viewed at just the right angle, the image had a curious habit of reversing itself and appearing as a negative.
- Paris Boulevard c. 1889.Above: Daguerre's daguerreotype of a Paris Boulevard, which dates from 1839. In this early daguerreotype the wagons, carriages, and pedestrians were not recorded because the slow exposure could only record stationary objects. On the lower left street corner, a man stopped to have his boots polished and became the first person ever to be photographed.
Click on the image below to view a larger image of Daguerre's first successful photograph. It is a still-life taken in his studio in 1837, and represents the earliest surviving daguerreotype still in existence.
