lntroduction
LIGHT WRITING: FROM THE DAGUERREOTYPE
TO DIGITAL
The basic meaning of the n ord "photography" is light writing.
The medium received that designation in 1839, soon after
photography was announced to the world. Despite its n-rany
rapid technical changes, from the DAGUERREoTYPE to DIGITAL,
the photograph is still an image rooted in the agency of light.
\\'hen a nineteenth-century photographer placed a leaf on light-
sensitized paper and exposed the paper to sunlight, the result was
a photograph. Today, digital cameras make electronic records of
1ight, from which one can make prints, or emails, or archives.
The concept of light writing is a starting point for under-
standing photography. At the same time, it is important to
7 appreciate that photography has never been one thing. In 1839,
there were three types ofphotography. The daguerreotlpe, an
rmage produced on a silver-coated copper plate, was named
lbr its inventor, Louis-lacques-Mande Daguerre. In addition,
trvo forms of photography on paper lr,'ere invented by William
Henry Fox Talbot. One employed a camera and the other, ca1led
photogenic drawing, was a contact print made by placing an
object on light-sensitive paper. While the daguerreotype rvas
a one-of-a-kind image, photographs on paper and photogenic
drawings had the potential to be made into Nncattt,r,s, from
thich additional copies could be produced. Throughout its
history, photography rapidly changed its technological means,
though each type was a variant of light u'riting.
Even before photography u,as presented to the rvorld,
the medium was grasped through the imagination and prior
experience ofthose who read or heard about it. In other words,
photographywas a set ofassumptions in advance ofexperience.
Soon manifold uses for photography appeared. Within a decade
of its presentation to the lvorld, photography rvas enmeshed
in modernity while it helped to shape the modern condition
in which knowledge is increasingly visualized. By 1852,
photographic practice had extended to so manv applications
that one observer concluded "photography is at the same time
a science, an art, and an industry."l
Photo graphy has alr,vays been cross -disciplinary.
Photographers who used the medium for artistic expression,
record-keeplng, journalisrn, scientific documentation, family
history, or other diverse photographic endeavors reached beyond
their immediate lie1ds for inspiration and irrlormation. Indeed,
photographers are omnivores. When asked if there were any
influences she wanted to mention, American photographer
Helen Levitt (i913-2009) replied, "Everl'thing I ever sarv
influenced me." It comes as no surprise that photographers
have been at the forefront of digital invention.
Cross-disciplinary awareness and interest do not equate
rvith harmony. By 1850 photography rvas immersed in societal
debates and deeply at odds n'ith itself. It was conjectr.rred to
be variously an art, a danger to art, a science, a re'n'olutionarv
means of education, a mindless machine for rer-rdering, and
a threat to social order. Because photography appeared to be
a relatively cheap way to disseminate intbrmation, it seemed to
augur either a modern, bloodless, egalitarian revolution, or a
social degeneration in n hich viewers would glut thernselves with
pleasing but trivial images of reality.
Some of these old battles are still being waged. The camerat
objectivity continues to be both beloved and berated by
photographers and the general public. The easy manipulatlon
of photographs using digital software has enlivened the
protracted concern u,'ith$e character of photographic realism.
Vernacular and popular photographs, such as camera-phone
and paparazzi pictures, are persistently blan-red for lowering the
public's judgment.
ln 1923, the filmmaker and photographer Paul Strand spoke
to students at the Clarence White School of Photographv in
Neu, York, and reflected on the future ofphotography. He urged
photographers to be lifelong students ofthe changlng technical
TNTRODUCTTON I XUI
dimensions of the medium, its history, and its contemporary
expression. He lamented that painters had easy reference to their
heritage in museums, while photographers did not. Although
Strand was right about the need for students to engage actively
with photography's past and present, he erred in underrating
access to photography's history.
Of course, early photographic collections could not rival
the breadth ofart held in galleries like the Louvre in Paris.
Nevertheless, the reproducibility of photography renders the
medium unusually available. Early in its history, photographic
images were regularly displayed in shop windows and shown
by photographic societies. Prints began to be collected by public
institutions in the mid-1850s. Photographic books and journals
contained photographs reproduced by printing techniques, and,
occasionally, actual photographic prints. In the late nineteenth
century, when technology allowed photographs to be printed
directly in books and magazines, the age of mass media began
to take shape. Today, the instant and broad access to photography
made possible by the Internet is unprecedented. Students of
photography now have ever-increasing opportunities to view
historic and contemporary images in digital form.
The basic relationship of the photograph and the viewer
ri
rests on a few elements: informed observation, research, t
and contemplation. Photographic historian Estelle Jussim
wisely counseled that students of photography's past and
present must "expect complexity." The richness and reward
of photographic study comes from exploring the
comprehensiveness of the medium.
UN DERSTANDING PHOTOGRAPHS
Because it is an everyday activity looking at photographs
seems less complicated than looking at paintings. In fact, we
encounter so many photographs in one day that to attend
to each would be both time consuming and exasperating.
Looking at a painting usually involves going to a space especially
reserved for that activity. By contrast, looking at photographs is
mostly unavoidable in life. Newspapers, magazines, television
programs, billboards, Internet sites, and camera-phones thrust
photographs at us. The stream of images is so intense that
contemporary observers have honed skills that allow them to
assess and reject swiftly much in the daily rush of images. Where
a person in the 1840s might dwell lengthily on a single, carefully
stored daguerreoq?e, someone these days might hurriedly
review and delete numerous images from an email or camera-
phone, in expectation of many more equally valuable ones to
tbllow soon.
Understanding photographs is different from looking at
them. Understanding a photograph requires time and willingness
to set aside the rapid-fire judgments applied to images in
the stream of daily life. Thought, research, and an occasional
rer-ision of initial impressions are necessary, and these take more
time than a brief look.
Er-en rvhen the subjectofa photograph is apparent, it is useful
to recall that photographs have many and sometimes overlapping
ston-lines. One of those storylines involves
lT!$qUS, but we do
_,'..' TNTRODUCTTON
not need to be able to make a particular type of photograph
to recognize how a photographer has employed a technique.
Most people who looked at daguerreotypes in the 1840s were
not able to create them. Nevertheless, they could appreciate the
effects of the polished surface and the intimacy of holding the
small picture in their hand, moving it forward and back for a
better view.
The subiec(ofa photograph has many facets. Subject includes,
but reaches beyond, who or what is pictured in a photograph.
For instance, to Western eyes-especially in the nineteenth
century-a photograph of a Greek temple was associated with
ancient Greek government and the arts, as well as their influence
on Western political and cultural history. Of course, associations
are not permanent, but circumscribed by time, place, and
audiences. Moreover, the subject ofa photograph is inflected by
elements of ernpggtign: the angle from which the picture was
taken, the visual information given in the foreground and back-
ground, the amount of detail used to render all or parts of the
picture, and the deliberate manipulation of light, shade, texture,
and color. Though it is often unfeasible to know how the image
was treated in the darkroom or u'ith photo-editing software, it
is still necessary to remember that the photographer may make
the picture after taking the picture. All of these components must
be appreciated as choices made bv the photographer, sometimes
in an instant.
Style-that is, the characteristic methods and ideas employed
in a movement-exists in photography, just as it does in the
other arts. But style and period irr photography are not always
synchronized with the other arts. The technique called coLLAGE,
the arrangement of various materials, usually on a flat surface,
so as to create a new composition, was employed before and
after the technique was made prominent in pre-World War
I modern art. The first photographic collages may have been
crafted by mid-nineteenth-centurv women for family albums.
In the 1920s, the widespread, international use ofphoto-collage
techniques across art, advertising, and newspaper photography
drew less on prewar examples than on ideas prominent in
photographic criticism.
AgeUl!9 the depiction of the external world as it appears to
the eye, has long been a porverfirl pulse in Western art, ranging
from Roman portraits to Dutch paintings of household scenes.
But the distinctive realism oiphotography does not often fit
neatly into various historic moments of fine-art realism. The
camera seemed to have the unique ability to soak up large
quantities of visual detail. Therefore, its images were judged
to be far less subjective than those made by other methods.
Because photography was thought not to have an inherent
style of its own, it quickly became synonymous with the
making and collecting of objective images. Yet it is important
to remember that the absence of style-stylessness-is a style
in its own right. When it appears, it points to the expectations
of the photographer and of the image's anticipated audiences.
Although the pursuit of photograpnic_eVi&Ig9in science and
law is nearly as old as the medium, tfi6 underlying concepts of
evidence and documentary expression have been frequently
challenged. These contests of meaning-and all such disputes-
are as much part of photography's history as are its technical
accomplishments.
The reception of photographic images is shaped by the f-act
that photography has been, for the most part, a medium based
on multiples. The sense that there is one original that exists in
orffi;riiplace, like lhe Mona Lisa inthe Louvre in Paris,
usually does not apply to photography'. Prints n-rade bv the
photographer are sometimes r.alued more than prints made b1'
an assistant or after the photographert death. Even in the era
of digital printing, some photographic prints are technicaill'
and aesthetically preferable to others. To understand
photography is to understand that the photographer u'as
probably thinking about multiple images rvhen the picture n'as
taken. Sequencing photographs, u,hether for an exhibition, a
book, a newspaper article, or a u.ebsite, is an ongolng aspect of
photography. Thinking in series ma,v be done for a short period,
or over a lifetime. Also, a photographer mav consider making
multiple, but siightly dillerent prints from one original, b1'
varying depth ofshadou,or color in the darkroom or through
photo-editing softu.are.
Marketing also p1a.vs role in multiple images. For example,
a have blended r,lsual and literary sources to create photofictions.
thefineieeni6-century San Francisco photographer Carleton
Watkins used a speclal camera to make negatives from rvhich
he created mammoth prints (approximatelr' 18 x 22 inches) of
the American West. These large prints u.ere mostlr'bought br'
prosperous collectors as sho*,pieces. Yet \\'atkins also made
smaller, more affordable photographs for tourist albums. The
same image was understood differentlf in separate contexts.
Today, when mass-media images of the American \Vest are tve1l
known to casual vieu,ers through magazines, films, television,
and websites, Watkins's \Vestern images do not carn'the same
associations that the,v had in an era lvhen most Americans had
never seen the mountains and vistas of the \Vest.
Time, and involve knorving rvhose tirne,
what was happening in and outside the picture.
A may shorv r',nhat an important event looked like
to an r standing near the camera, but it cannot indicate
the hist5rical background. To understand rvh,v a photograph of
an event looks the r'r'ay it does, it is necessary to look be,vond
the frame and to ask horv the picture relates to lr'hat happened.
For instance, in war photograph,v from late in \Vor1d \Var II to
the present da,v, portraits of individual soldlers have been more
popular u,ith the public than images of generals and battles.
To appreciate that situation, one has to look at public Perception
of modern warfare, and at hou,prior pictures in all media,
especially in mass media, have shaped pictures of soidiers.
Yet however r.r,idespread a photographic approach may seem,
it is likely that images also possess a particular local resonance
that cannot be generalized.
The practice of photography has been formed bv expec-
tatior.rs originating in the settings for rvhich the photographs
lvere initially created, and b,v the circumstances of subsequent
observation. Plgg g-{itq1s help shape photojournalism through
suggestions gir.en to the photographer before the pictures are
taken, and through selection trorn the array of resulting images.
\\rhen these same images are shon n in a gallery, the maker and
curators lvork together, creating a different effect rvith placement,
lighting, and sequencing.
It is important to keep in mind that photographic genres
have been verv porous. Art photography has influenced
ne\\'spaper imager,v and vice versa. Aspects of experimental
art photograph,v-for instance, the odd and abrupt angles of
Russian photographv after the Revolution or collages created
in the 1'ears betrveen \Vorld \Var I and \\brld War ll-lvere
adapted for advertising and documentary u,ork. Scientific
photographs ofphenomena not seen by the human eye have been
displal.ed for their aesthetic qualities, not their factual content.
In current and historic photographic practice, photographers
Especiall,v in recent t,ears, ordinary snapshots have influenced
art and photojournalism. In addition, u'hen photographs are
presented in installations that make use of large projections, they
sometimes come close to contemporary video and film in their
r.isual investigations of perception and time.
Just as photographic genres absorb ideas and images from
each other, so too are photographers' intentions an amalgam
of visual and topical possibillties. Aesthetic experimentation
and self-expression are not lin-rited to art photography, but
encompass a1l genres, including amateur and casual photography,
as evidenced or-r the flourishing Internet-based camera-phone
galleries. A photographer's influences are not restricted to
the r.isual arts. Although painting has regularly inflected
photographic practice, literature, film, and mass media have
also played significant roles in the field. Pinning don'n an image-
maker's influences is as slipperl'a business as analyzing how
anv individual comes to do and make things. Autobiographies, \l
biographies, and artists' statements are valuable, but a life, like ':\
an image, ahr.avs seems to er,ade exhaustive description.
Pol,vmath and critic John Berger summed up the photo-
graphic condition rvhen he observed that "the relationship k'
/t \
betrveen rvhat u,e see and rvhat lve know is never settledl'2
The meaning of photographs shifts over time and in the
apprEiiatiai oTtrlEEreiiaudiences. Understanding photographs
can be pleasurable, challenging, perplexing, edifying, painful,
disappointing, or uplifting. \Vhat it can never be is complete.
TNTRODUCTTOT.T I XV
PART ONE

PhotoUraphy'$
0ouhle lnuerrtion
Chapter One
The Origins of Photography (to 1839)

Chapter Two
The Second lnvention of Photography (1339-1S54)

Philosophy and Practice

A Threat to Art?
 I

hotography was invented twice: once during a period

of rargely conceared and
scattered technological development, from the end of
the eighteenth century
to 1839, and then again in the decades after its discrosure,
when it would be
ceaselessly reinvented by the social uses to which
it was put and the cultural dialogue
surrounding it.
The invention of photography-or photographies,
since severar different
image-making methods rvere created-did not depend
directly on the impetus of
a particular visual tradition, or even on a demonstrable
social need. Instead, the
climate of congenial attitudes toward material progress,
research, and innovation
encouraged its conception. Around 1g00, western
European countries began to
define government's role as fostering economic development
through the expansion
of industry and commerce. sociar progress was understood
to flow from the
intellectuai freedom of individuals seeking to solve scientific
probiems that would
lead to practical applications. Those with the most
to gain from this attitude toward
change were the educated crasses, as weil as entrepreneurs,
manufacturers, and
enlightened landlords-peopre making up a growing
middte crass whose status was
based on their achievements and earnings.r The
petiie bourgeoisie, or rower middle
class, also benefited from the outrook that linked
achievement to ability.
The primary elements of the photographic process
began to come together and
were experimented with in an era when practical,
commercially feasible applications
of scientific experiments were encouraged by national
policy and cultural values.
Independent entrepreneurs and business people started
to believe that their
investments in research might be rewarded. Much
of the history of early experiments
in photography shows cultural attitudes prompting resourceful
individuals to resolve
practical problems and technic al puzzles. Not every
inventor sought financial gain
and acclaim, but each of the originators whose stories
we know believed in tinkering
with devices and testing formulas. In rg39, when the medium
was disclosed, the
industrializing world eagerly began to explore how it
might be applied to portraiture,
record-keeping, politicai persuasion, academic investigation,
and travel accounts.
Ten years later, photographic subjects and applicationsbegan
a swift proliferation
that constituted a second invention, based partially
on the inclinations of individual
photographers, but also on the needs of society. The
market for portraits expanded,
historical events began to be photographed, science
and social science took up the
medium, and artists and artistically inclined photographers
used the camera for
personal expression and aesthetic exploration.
 1.1
LOUIS-TACQUES-MAN DE DAGUERRE, View o! the Boutevard du Temple, c.1839.
Daguerreotype. Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, Munich, Germany.

3.:'
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Iiilnr
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:-'

\
CHAPTER ON E
The 0riUitts of Photography (to 183$)
Since ancient times, devices have been used to aid the eye and
hand in reproducing the appearance of optical reaiit,v. Indeed,
the legend of the Corinthian Maid n ho preserved the look of
her departing lover by tracing his cast-shadou, outline on a
rvall points to the antiquity of the desire for lit-elike replicas.
Ultimately, photography was invented by individr.rals rvorking
independently from each other, in a relatively short period
during the early years of the Industrial Revolution. Their
inventions sparked other discoveries, and created a broad
social discourse about the meaning of the neu. meilium.
Photographywas presented to the norld on Ar.rgust 19, 1839,
at a joint meeting of the Academy of Science and the Academv
of Fine Arts in Paris. Claiming a sore throat, Louis-|acques-
Mande Daguerre (1787-1851), the specified inventor, did not
rlake the initiai presentation. He left the demonstration and
technical discussion to Franqois Arago (1786-1853), a scientist
and member of the Chamber of Deputies, the lorver house of
the French parliament. For his accomplishment, Daguerre was
arvarded a lifelong pension from the French government. The
only requirement placed upon hlm u,as that he fully reveal his
method, which he did in his booklet Historique et description
du procidi du Daguerrdotype et du Diorama (History and
Description of the Process oJ the Daguerreotype and the Diorama)
(1839). The text was quickly translated into manv languages and
published around the vvorld.
Tradition still casts Daguerre as the originator of
photography, a consensus initiated by Frangois Arago ahnost tu,o
centuries ago. Yet the history of the der.elopment of photography
is a more complicated tale, involr.ing partial successes, rnissed
opportunities, good fortune, and talse starts. The oft-repeated
story ofthe presentation ofphotography in 1 839 says little about
the precursors of the medium, the specific collrse of inr.ention,
or the social environment in n hich the medium rvas conceived,
nor about others who contributed to Daguerret rvork or r,r,ho
formulated different photographic processes.
The basic ingredients of photography-a light-tight box, lenses,
and light-sensitive substances-had been known for hundreds of
years before they were combined. If the invention of photography
had depended sole1y on the availability of materials, it could have
taken place during the late Renaissance. Indeed, all but the light-
sensitive material was present in a technique for astronomical
obsen ation that used some European cathedrals like cameras.
Beginning in the sixteenth century, the dark interiors ofchurches
such as Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, Italy, and Saint-Sulpice
in Paris, France, were punctured with a small hole in the roof,
u.hich rvorked like a lens to focus an image of the sun on the
floor below. There the sun's movements u'ere measured and used
to establish the modern calendar. Ironically, these gauges verified
Galileoi proof of Copernicus's theory that the sun, not the earth,
is the center of our universe, an idea repudiated bv the Roman
Catholic Church.' With the cathedral serving as a camera,
a light-sensitive material might have been found in silver.
Silversmithing was an advanced art in the Renaissance, and
the perception that silver darkens when exposed to light was
an ancient commonplace. If someone ever tried placing a
polished silver plate on the floor of a cathedral, however, to
see whether it would register the sunt image, no record of that
experiment has sun ived.
Before the end of the elghteenth century, imagining the
photographic process seems to have been diflicult. Unlike
other transformational technologies, such as air travel and
automobiles, photography was not foreseen in the centuries
before it was invented. Looking back on what was widely
perceived as the medium's abrupt appearance, American essayist
and rnedical doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes ( 1809- 1894)
remarked that "in al1 the prophecies of dreaming enthusiasts,
in all the random guesses of the future conquests over matter,
r.",,e cio not remember any prediction of such an inconceivable
wonder. ... No Century of Inventions includes this among its
possibilities."2 In utopian ar.rd speculative fiction written prior
t:
 to 1800, only the 1 760 novel Giphantie,bl. French u.riter
Charles Franqois Tiphaigne de 1a Roche (1723-1771),
anticipated something like the detailecl transcription of the
obser'able world thaiu,ould occur rvith photographr'. In
Giphantie,a narrator r,isits the hollorv of the earth's center, rr.here
a group of spirits creates highli' illusior-ristic paintings. A canr-as
' . is smeare6 rvith a my.sterious r.iscols rnaterial and placed betbre
a desired scene. Like a mirror, it records er.ery color and detail.
After an hour's dr,ving time in a dark place, the picture becomes
permanent. Arguab11,, Giphantie anticipated the r,rse of light-
. sensitive cher.nicals, but the storl'did not involr,e a light-tight
box or lenses-or a human operator.
Although it seems that the invention oiphotograph).
should be related to the start of the Industrial ReYolutlon, its
connection to the technical, social, and political changes that
accompanied the initial mechanizatior.r of productior.r during the
late eighteenth and earlr. nir-reteenth centuries in Europe is r-rot
easy to establish. The desire lbr reliable visual reproductior.rs has
been linked to the needs of expanding corrlmerce and industrr',
and rhe rvish of the emerging middle class tbr realistic portraits.
But around 1800, l.hen the first documentable experiments
attempted to recorcl the r,isible rvorld bl,means of light-
sensitive materials, these trends \vere not clearlv discernible
to contemporaries.
pHOTOGRA,Hy
BEFORE
Describing the late eighteenth centur)., historian Eric Hobsban.m
persuasively depicted a r,r,orld that rvas iargely rural, in rvhich
there was no urban, mass culture pressir.rg for realistic,
multiple images.r Even in Britain, u,here industrialism rvas
most advanced, the stream of reports, novels, and documents
describing the Industrial Revolution did not begin to appear
until the I g30s and 1840s. In the early nineteer-rth centur\,,
I cHlerrn oNE - THE oRtctNs oF eHoToGRAPHY (To 1839)
the visual arts lvere dominated by Neoclassical idealism and
Romantic expression. Naturalistic depiction of reality u'as
occasionally pr.rrsued, for example, in the style of German
landscape painting knou'n as Biedermeier, or British watercolors
such as those of |ohn Sell Cotman (1782-1842), although this
trend did not 1'et seem influential. While the British artist fohn
Constable (177 6-1537) struggled to render his observations
of the changing light elTects of sun and clouds in the rural
landscape, his successtul contemporar,v Ioseph Mallord William
Turner (1775-1851) produced thntastical medleys of color
unt-ettered by mere depiction. Similarly, during the 1820s,
Frer.rch artist Eugene Delacroix (1798- 1863) was fascinated with
expressionlstic color and theatrical lighting effects, and was less
. interested in reallsm. Bv the mid- 1830s, rvhen many painters
became firore concerned rvith the appearance of mundane reality,
as in the u.ork of the Barbizon School of artists such as Thdodore
Rousseau (1812-1867), photography had been invented b1'
several people'
TECHNOLOGICAL AND ARTISTIC FOREBEARS
Because our culture places great value on irnaginative art,
it is sometirnes tbrgotten that one of the most common uses
for visual depictions in the centuries before photography
was to cop). the observable lr,orld and to communicate visual
information in an unir.rtlected manner. Routine commissions
for landscapes and portraits did not generally call for the artist's
personal interpretation or str'listic flair. Similarly, engravers and
etchers, rvho produced mr"rltiple images fiom drar,vings cut into a
rvooden or metal p1ate, rvere expected faithfully to copy historic
monuments, machines ar-rd der-ices, animals and botanical
specimens, and elen u-orks of art.
Contraptions to l.re1p artists produce images had existed for
centuries. French printmaker Abraham Bosse (1602-1676),
rvho wrote anci lecturecl on perspective, showed how artists
could achieve sreater hdelitr- bv ernploying a screen lvith equally
-t.2
AB RA H A M BOSSE, Engravi n g D epicting Artist at wo rk,
c. 1737.
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1.3
ARTIST U N KN OWN, Gilles-Louis Chrdtien\ Physionotrace, c.1786.
Drawing. Bibliothlque Nationale de France, Paris.
1.4
ARTIST UNKNOWN,Cilbert Motier, Marquis de La Fayette, t895; (below image)
D'opris le physionotrace de Quenedey. Aquatint, colored, after physionotrace
drawing, Marquis de Lafayette Print Collection, David Bishop Skillman Library.
Lafayette College Library, Easton, Pennsylvania.

spaced squares (Fig. 1.2).' This simple device r,r.as particularly engraved images, accornpanied the grorvth of the middle classes
useful in foreshortening-that is, contracting the image of in eighteenth-century Europe, and their taste fbr likenesses
an object or human figure so as to create the appearance of rendered without the idealization and ornament flaunted in
perspective. A variant ofthe technique, employing graph paper, aristocratic portr;iits. A seemingly neutrai descriptive approach
is used today. i
to portraits in all media began to distinguish middle-class
The peNrocRepn, familiar since the seventeenth centur),, \ likenesses from those created for the upper classes. In addition
and still availabie as a drafting tool and as a childs to1-. helped to being quicker to produce than a painting, and certainly less
artists copy, enlarge, or reduce drau,ings. French engraver expensive, the silhouette and the physiorrotrace responded
Gilles-Louis Chrdtien (1754-181 1) adapted the pantograph to
engraving in 1786, calling his invention the puysroNorRACE
(Fig. 1.3). The physionotrace mechanized a technique for making
profiles (Fig. La) that can be traced back to the time of Louis
XIV (1638-1715:r.1643-77 l5). Not only did the physionotrace
permit users to make multiple copies, but it also allor,r,ed color
to be applied.5 SrrnouBrrrs, or shador.v portraits, were part
entertainment and part artistic venture. Silhouette-makers
primarily served the bourgeoisie, but they also sold profile
portraits on the streets and at parties. Some dextrously cut dark
paper while observing a subject standing in profile; others used
a candle to project the outline ofa subject's head on to a sheet of
1.5
paper (Figs. 1.15, 1.5). ARTIST UNKNOWN, Eernie. Silhouette
The public acceptance ofthe silhouette, usually a single portrait, 1790s. lnk on paper mounted
;r.-rr14e- on 51h x 41,bin. (13.s x I0.6 cm) papen
image, and the physionotrace, which produced multiple, Hans P. Kraus, Jr. Collection, New York.

BEFORE PHOTOCRAPHY I l

"t.5
CAMERA OBSCURA
A simple tool for making drawings, the camera obscura projected an upside'down image onto a mirror, which reflected the image upward onto a pane of translucent glass.
The user put a piece of thin paper over the glass, and traced the image.
to the middle-class view of itself as a distinct social group.
Such portraits exemplified a sense of individualism and
accomplishment among professionals and business people,
expressed not simply through the ownership of portraits but
also through a preference for likenesses that accentuated such
personal features as the shape ofthe nose and the slant ofthe
forehead. Treatises on physiognoml., the studl.of physical
features as a means to deduce human character, appealed to a
middle class seeking new ways, beyond pedigree, to understand
temperament and personal achievement. As they evolved,
mechanical aids to drawing became more exact, emphasizing
outlines and contours rather than shading, or atmospheric
efFects, or personal interpretation. A similar idea of a neutral
representation found favor in the sciences-especially biology,
botany, and geology, which sought methods to convey visual
data objectively.
1.7
THOMAS SANDBY lVindsor from the Goswells,1770. Camera obscura drawing. The Royal Collection. O
I cHaerun oNE - THE oRtclNS oF pHorocRApHy (To 1839)
W@
The drarving aid with the most direct elTect on photography was
the ceurne oBSCURA, literally,, a "dark room." Actually, the
camera obscura was originallv a darkened, room-size chamber,
in which a tiny opening in one u,a1l acted like a 1ens, focusing
an upside-down image of the scene outside on to the opposite
wall. O.,,er time, the room-size chamber was made smaller and
portable (Fig. 1.6). It was equipped u,ith lenses, and constructed
with an internal mirror so that the upside-down image was
righted and could be traced on a piece of paper placed on a
translucent glass plate installed in the top ofthe device. Like
other machines to aid drar,ving, the camera obscura did not
encourage imagination or personal st1'le, and usually produced
stiff, formal images (Fig. 1.7). It could help artists to trace the
outlines ofshapes, but it obviously could not copy the religious,
historical, or mlthological scenes that rvere central to art
production until the nineteenth centur\,.
2OO2 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth ll.
 1.8 (left)
CO RN E LtUS VAR LEy, Artisr S&
etching with a Wolloston Camera Lucida, 1g3O,
Engraving. Gernsheim Collection. Hairy
Ransom Hr;""1;;;; Research center.

1.9 (below)
WILLIAM HENRy FOX TALBOT,Camera
Lucida Drowingof theTerrace atthe
Villa Melzi, october 5, .t833. Drawing. ruational
fvteaia Mislum, araaford, England.

An even_ more transportable and lightweight

aid to drawing was
patented in 1806 by British scientist William
Hyde Wbllaston
(1766-1528). Simple, if somenhat
awkward to use, the cAMERA
LUCTDA, or light room, consisted
a glass prism having two silvered
of a rod to which was afllxed
sides that reflected the scene
it
at which it lr.as aimed. A person wishing
to draw a scene would
attach the camera lucida to a drawing table
and adjust the prism
so as to reflect an image directly into
the eye. Looking down, the
user then moved the prism slightly to
creaie the illusion of the
scene existing on the drawing paper.
The wouid_be artist could
then trace the outlines of the scene directly d
on to the drawing
paper, while looking up occasionary
to check the actuar scene.
The camera lucida rvas useful to travelers
t
who wanted to record I
topographic or architectural viervs (Figs. 1.g,
i.9).
There were, in sum, two general calgories
of drawing aid.
The first, such as the camera lucida, netfea
artists produce a
single image. The second, such as the physionotrace,
yielded
multiple copies' The developm.r-rt of th.r.
devices in the years
prior to photography indicates different needs,
not a concerted

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BEFORE nxorocnannv I {
focu$
The First Photograph
w
When a small photograph came up for auction in 2008, T
Dr.Laruy I. Schaal an expert on early British photography, **
challenged its attribution. He observed that the imaget
dark red color and darkened highlights indicated that the $
g
photograph had not been fixed-that is, its light sensitivity 5
*
had not been completely deactivated. In addition, the
*
.8

photograph originated in an album originally owned by a $.

*
collector who attended meetings of the Lunar Society. Equally
intriguing is what looked like part of the letter "W" inscribed in
ink in the upper right-hand corner. Could this be an example
of the photographs made by Wedgwood and Davy, or by
|ames Watt? Unfixed images become pale in the light, yet we
know that some of Wedgwood and Davy's pictures were still
visible in 1885. Keeping unfixed images in the dark would
retard fading, but for more than two hundred years? If so, the
early photographs in this album would be the oldest existing
photographs known. The auctioned image is now in private
hands. While not the newly attributed image, this photograph
is from the sarne album.

1.10
SHARK EGG CASE,lr840-45. Metropolitan Museum of Arg New york.

ry+r1IWF?
W

S I CHNETER ONE - THE ORICINS OF PHOTOCRAPHY (TO 1839)

social demand. For example, landscape artists used drait ing
devices to make a visual record as part of the preparatior.r for a
painting. 'liavelers emplol.ed these tools to render mementos of
a scene. In either case, the user did not ordinaril,v intend to n.rake
multiple copies of the image, like cop,v-artists, engravers, and
prir.rters. Similzlrly, r,r,hen photograph,v lr,as invented b,v a number
of individuals, some created systems that produced unique
single images, and others thshioned techniques that could make
multiple copies.
THE INVENTION OF "PHOTOGRAPHIES"
The history of the first photographs has been made to 1it into the
conventional notion that inver.rtion is regular and progressive,
with each experiment building in an order11., successful way on
the achievements of the past. Hou,ever, none of photograph,v's
pioneers reported making headn ay in that fr,rshion.
ANTOTNE FLORENCE AND THE QUESTION OF
SIMU LTAN EOUS ! NVENTION
French artist and cartographer Antoine H6rcules Romuald
Florence (1804-1879) trar.eled through the ir.rterior of Brazil u.ith
Gernran naturalist Baron Georg von Lansdorff (1771-1852) to
record the area's peoples and natural settings. After the 1824-29
expedition he settled in Campinas, a city locatecl in the pro",ir.rce
of Sao Paulo, where he painted vieu,s and portraits. In I 830,
lvhile trying to publish ii book on animal sounds, he became
frustrated by the lack ofnearby printing shops and invented his
on n printing technique, u.hich he called poligrnplri e, meaning
"multipie r'vriting." Soon after, Florer.rce conceived photograph,v
after noticing that certair.r fabrics faded lr,.hen exposed to light.
According to Boris Kossoy, Florence u,as successtul because
he ivas removed from centers of scientific leirrning, and had
to thirik unconr.entionalll.." With the aid of the local druggist,
Florence experimented rvith the camera obscura to see if he
could make its images permanent. Ur.rsuccessful, he investigated
the prlntmaking potential of glass plates that u'ere cor.ered
lvlth a dark mixture of gum arabic and soot. Like an engraver,
he scratched designs into the plates, and then placed them on
paper that had been made light sensitir.e through a treatment
u,ith sil."'er chloride, lvhich darkens in the presence of light. The
paper's light sensitivity could be halted by the application of an
ammonia solution, lvhich stopped the darkening action.
Florencet diaries sholr. precise drawings of small cameras
and of printing fiames that used sunlight to print an image.
In 1832, he began using the term photographie fbr his process,
deriving it from the Greek rr.ords for light and .'vriting.- He
used his photographic technique to produce diplomas, tags,
and labels, but appears not to have fared u,e1l in reproducing
camera images. When Daguerre's photographl. u.as announced
in 1839, Florence realized that his humble efforts could not
compete, and he directed his energies tor'vard other aspects of
the printing business.s \\rriting to ne$rspapers in Sao Paulo and
Rio de faneiro, he modestly declared that he u,ould not "dispute
anvonet discoverv ... because trt,o people can have tl-re
same idea."e
The notion of simultaneous invention-that two or more
people can develop the same concept at about the same time-
r'r,as mentionecl by Florer.rce and b,v another of photography's
pioneers, William Henry Fox Talbot (1800-1877), whose
experiments are discussed later in the chapter.r0 Sirr-rultaneous
lnvention makes it ditficult to construct a linear chronologl. of
photography and suggests, moreover, thirt there may have been
other successful yet unkno\\.n attempts to in.,'ent photo-'
lf Florence, lir.ing ir-r a remote area, could originate a wa
reproduce labels using a light-sensitive silver compoun(
elseu,here in the rvorld may have had similar partial succ
It is probable that, rvhile the u.ork of individuals such as
rr.as to become better known, the precise history of photographyt
lnvention ivil1 ner.er be fullv ascertained.
THE PROBLEM OF PERMANENCE: WEDCWOOD
AND DAVY
Many histories of photographv trace the development ot
European photographl. through the research of Thomas
\\redgwood (1771 1805) and Humphry Dav,y (1778 1829),
both of lvhom-unlike Florence-nere in tor.rch lvith up-to-
date scientilic inquir1.. Wedgrvood, son of Josiah Wedgwood
(1730-1795), the British amateur scientist and pottery
manufacturer r.r,ho helped pclpularize Neoclassicism with his
designs, attended meetings of the Lunar Society, a distinguished
group that included physlcian-scientist Erasmus Darr,r,in
(1731-1802), inventor james Watt (1736-1819), and the political
theorist and scientist Joseph Priestley (1733-1804). The group
kept abreast of scientific discoveries in Europe and America,
nnd deliberatell, sought practical applications for nelv findings.
Thomas Wedgrvood's special interest rvas the new, or French,
chemistry developed by Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier (17 43-1794),
mandated repeated testing of hypotheses in the laboratory,
r,r,ho
a practice he helped to establish as the standard for the field.
The new chemists were animated by the sense that they were
discovering the rvorld atiesh.
An enthusiasm for science, especiallv the nerv chemistry,
prompted \Vedgwood and his friend Dav-v, then a humble
apothecar,vt apprentice, to experiment rvith light-sensitive
materials. They sought to fix the image of an object's shadow
cast or1 paper or leather that had been made light sensitive by
immersion in a silver nitrate solution, and they also atternpted
to capture images formed in a camera obscurir. In addition, they
tried to copy paintings on glass by letting light pass through the
glass on to light-sensitive paper. Unknor'vn to them, silver nitrate
u,as not sulicientiy iight sensitive to hold the image projected
inside the camera obscura. The more direct approach, shadou,
lmages of objects and paintings or-r glass, did lear.e a photographic
lmprint, although it $,as not permanent since the silver nitrate
continued to react to light until the surface darkened. In his
1802 report on their rvork, Dar1, announced that "nothing but a
method of preventing the unshaded part of the dellneation fron.r
being coloured by exposure to the dav is u,antingto render the
THE !NVENTTON OF'PHOTOGRAPHTES" | 9
 process as useflrl as it is elegantl'11 Wedgwood was prevented by
illness from taking part in further joint experiments, and Dar.y
moved on in other scientllic directions, eventually becoming
president of the Royal Societl'.
Although Wedgwood and Dar.1"s experiments in fixing a
light-induced image lvere less successful than the later efforts
of Florence, their eflorts u,ere knon n in scientihc circles.
fames Watt, whose perfected steam engine helped porver the
Industrial Revolution, corresponded \\'ith \Vedg\\'ood trnd
may have attempted to make son.re photographs. Publication
of the Wedgr,r,'ood and Darl'experiments in the influential
/ournal of the Royal Institution of Great Britttin ( 1802) flrthered
their reputation. By contrast, Florer.rce's contribution was not
recognized until 1970. Even so, their rvork did not become a
stepping stone tbr subsequent successful attempts to stabilize
an image through photochemical reactions.
THE "SUN WRITING" OF NIEPCE
Another precursor of photographt'rras the "sur.t u,riting"
developed in France by Ioseph Nic6phore Ni6pce (1765-1833).
p^--+^^f^*.i1.,^f-^^^l^-.'L^L^,.1 ,,.^-1,^A +;-I]-^-^L-^,.^l+,.
Born to a family of people u,ho had u.orked tbr French roya1ty.,
Ni6pce received a fine education, and he came of age rvith high
expectations. The French Revolution, u,hich began in 1789, 1 789,
altered his prospects and, from the seclusion of a countrv estate,
he sought ways of making a living. \Vith hls brother Claude, he
spent years perfecting an internal combustion engine intended
to power riverboats. Dubbed the pyriolophore, this engine rvas
intended to rival the nel'onboard steam engine b1'burning
vegetable oil or other similar substances; it received a French
patent in 1807. Like many n ould-be entrepreneurs l'ho sau, the
development of new machines and processes as the source of
prosperity, Ni6pce turned his attention to the potential of the
lithographic process.
Lrrnocnapuv, a techr.riqr.re tbr reproducing images, uses
drawings on a flat surface, usua1l1.a smooth stone (ancient
Greek: /irlzos), rather than a n.retal or u,ood recessed surface,
as in engraving and etching. It r.as perfected in 1 798 bv the
German actor and writer Alois Senet-elder (1771-1834).
For communicating information the lithograph had se.",eral
advantages. It could yield quite a large number of prints, and it
could render tones and shadotvs more subtly than etching and
engraving, which gained their effects oflight and dark from
the closeness ofindir.ldual lines scratched into the surface of
the plate. Lithograph,v appealed to painters, r,r,ho could u,ork
directly on the lithographic stone u.ithout har.ing laboriousl','to
t
'.b cut lines into the surface. But it also lntrigued early nineteenth-
century entrepreneurs, nho sau. in lithographv a process that
I.. could surpass existing methods for lllustration. In the earl1.
1800s, lithography aroused the kind of get-rich-quick excitement
generated by smal1 computer and softrvare companies in the late
twentieth centurv.
Lacking the abilitl'to drau'on the lithographic stone, Nidpce
began to experiment rvith u.ays to produce an image through the
action of light upon photosensitir.e materials. His earl1.efforts,
begun in 1816, intolr.ed the use of paper made light sensitive
r0 | cunnre n oNE - THE oRtctNs oF pHoToGRApHy (To 1839)
by the application of a silver chloride solution. After exposing
the photosensitive paper in a camera obscura, he experienced
some of the very same problerns as Wedgwood and Daw. The
image rvas too indistinct, trnd the action of the light could not
be thoroughlr.stopped. Moreover, the tones of the image were
reversed: dark became light, and light became dark, creating
l'hat rvas later knor.vn as a NEGATTvE. Nidpce tried, without
success, to r.rse the negative as it is used today-that is, printing
it to create a positive image, in which the tones are re-reversed
and therebv corrected. He also failed to alter the reversed dark
and light areas through chemical means.
Ur.rdaunted, Niepce continued to try out various light-
ser.rsitive materials. He does not seem to have knou,n about
the experiments of \Vedg*,ood and Dar.y; nor, like them, did
he encounter ,1i1ny past investigations of such materials. An
obscure 1727 paper on the effects of light on silver nitrate by
German scientist Johann Heinrich Schulze (1687-1744) might
h
have been dilhcult to locate, but experiments rvith light-sensitive
materials conducted by Sr,vedish chemist Carl Wilhelm Scheele
(1742-1786), published in7777, and the r,r,ork of Swiss librarian
1o^o\
^-ll-^+^-:-+T^^..c^-^L:^-/1ar'a -.,L]:-L^-l:.^iro.
and intellectual capital such as early nineteenth-century Paris.
The discor.,er,v br. British scientist John Herschel (1792-1871),
published in 1819, that hyposulphite of soda dissolves silver
chloride, therebl.stopping its reaction to light, also seems to have
been unknou'n to Ni6pce, although he did receive advice about
photosensitive materials from French chemist Louis-Nicolas
\rauquelin (1763-1829). Ni6pce's approach to photographywas
thr.rs largely independent of the research of others.12
Beginning in 1822, Nidpce shifted his interests to copying
engravings by means ofthe action ollight. To do so, he saturated
an engrar.ing rvith oil to make it more transparent. He then
placed it on a peu,ter plate that had been coated with bitumen
of]udea, a substance knou,n to harden when exposed to light.
After light exposure, the areas beneath the engravingt dark
lines remained soft, while those beneath the light parts of
the engrar.ing hardened. The plate rvas rinsed rvith lavender
oil, u,ashing aw,ay the soft areas. What remained became an
engrar.ing plate, after Ni6pce etched the now blank areas with
acid. He then printed it (Fig. 1.11).
Finding this procedure more encouraging than his
experiment with silver chloride, Ni6pce put a similarly prepared
plate in a camera obscura and exposed it in a lvindorv at his
estate, Le Gras, near Chalon-sur-Sa6ne. After about eight
hours, he removed the plate, rvashed it r,vith a mixture of oil of
lar.ender and petroieum oi1, and rinsed away those soluble areas
of the piate where the bitumen of Judea had received less light.
The resulting plate contained a poor but visible negative of the
scene outside the rvindor,r, where the camera obscura had been
placed. The image itself was rer.ersed laterally-that is, Ieft to
right. Nidpce then took the plate and exposed it to iodine fumes.
The iodine did not full1, rsysr.. the tones, but it created greater
contrasts.r3 In effect, Ni6pce made what is now called a DTRECT
posITIVE image, one that, as the name implies,produces a
1.1 1

JOSEPH NICEPHORE NlEPCE, cardinol dAmboise,1825. Heliograph on pewter plate (reproduction ofan engraving). Mus6e Nic6phore Ni6pce,
Chalon-sur-5a6ne, France.

A seventeenth-century image ofCardinal dAmboise was one ofthe most popular and commercially successful engravings in France. Ni6pce copied the image
on to a pewter plate by photographic means as an experiment to show that the process would make it possible to print multiple copies, although he never
seems to have done so.
-

THE INVENTION OF.,PHOTOGRAPHIES" I

II
 :i-Lt,togrirph r,vithout a separate negative. Because there u,as no
ireqirtn'e tiom which to print copies, the image could r-rot be
reprodLlced. Though not completelv stable, Ni6pcet View frorn
tlrc \\'indow at Gras (c. 1826) is considered to be the u,orldt lirst
permanent photograph (Fig. 1.12).
In 1827, Ni6pce brought examples of his process-ca11ed
heliography, from the Greek r,vords for sun and lvriting-to
London, r.vhere he lvas visiting his brother Claude, u,ho still
hoped to get financial backing for the combustion engine tcr
porver riverboats. Clar-rde'.s ill-health and the increasing financial
strains on the family prompted Nidpce to seek funding for his
photographic process. He managed to get the attention and
support ofFrancis Bauer (1758-18,10), a fbllorv ofthe Royal
Societ1,, for rvhom he preptrred a short "Notice sur l'hdliographie"
("Notice on Heliography") (December 8, 1827), describing the
process in general terms. His thilure to generate interest in the
process may have been due to Ni6pce's cautious concealment of
his exact tecl.rnique. Before returning to Frtrnce in February 1828,
Niepce left many heliographs of engrar..ings and the \riew from
the \,\rindow at Gras u,ith Francis Bauer.
THE COLTABORATION OF NIEPCE AND DAGUERRE
While traveling through Paris on his jor,irney to Brlraln, Nidpce
met.,vith Daguerre, irt that time knolr,n as a painteq designer of
*16*
fs.;
-'f
1.12
JOSEPH N ICE PHOne tl tEpCe, View from the Window at Le Gros, c.l826. Heliograph. Gernsheim Collection.
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.
1l I cunnrrn oNE - THE oRtctNS oF pHorocRApHy (To 1839)
stage sets, and co-pr oppietor of the Diorama, a distinctive kind of
theater ti.rat prg531119d reirlistic special ellects to thrill audiences
(Fig. 1.13). To pl;1r1 his stase ilh-rsior-rs, especially the inrpression
of deeply recessed theatrical sprrce, Daguerre employed the
camera obscura. He also made sonte inellectual attempts to
capture photochemicalll.the in.rages that r,vere produced by the
camera obscura.
Daguerre and Nidpce u.ere introduced to one another by
Charles Chevalier (1804-1859), a Parisian maker of optical
instruntents and det ices such as the camera obscura, r,vith whom
both men did business. After his disappointing trip to England,
coupled with the death ofhis brother Claude in February 1828,
Ni6pce redoubled his efforts to find a photochemical method to
obtain permanent camera obscura images. He moved from using
pewter plates to highly polished silver plates and copper plates
covered lr,ith sil-',er. He continued to use bitumen of Judea,
rvhich yielded better picture quality when employed on a
silver backing.
Ni6pce had decided to rvork rvith Daguerre to improve
the photographic process, even though, as the photographic
historians Alison and Helmut Gernsheim concluded, Daguerre
could not produce a successful photograph to show Ni6pce.
In a contract signed by both on December 14, 1829, Daguerre
promised to give Nidpce an in-rproved camera obscura, and
 I

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1.13
tOUIS.TACQUES.MANDE DAGUERRE, Landscape with GothicRuins and Figures,1821.8rown ink and wash drawing. George Eastman House, Rochester, New York.

Daguerre's watercolor of the mists and shadows in a ruined Gothic church gives a sense of the dramatic style of the Dioramat entertainment. Through carefully planned
shifting lighting, transparent paintings on thin fabric, and sound effects, audiences were given the impression of being in a ruin, on an alpine hill, or near a waterfall.

Nidpce agreed to shon Daguerre the means bv u,hich he rvas
able to capture camera obscura images, rvhich he did at his
estate. Daguerre later admitted that the camera obscura he gar.e
to Ni6pce was ineffective in producing clearel images. \Vhen
Nidpce died suddeniy in 1833, Daguerre took up his research.
DAGUERRE AND THE LATENT IMAGE
Daguerre's personal circumstances were verv different trom
Niepce's. Born into a petite-bourgeois familr,, he lacked much
ibn.r-ral education. Ner.ertheless, his outgoir.rg personality and
drile to succeed contrasted with Ni6pce's docile yet mistrustful
attitude torvard others. Daguerre u,as poised to take ad\.antage
c.risocial forces in the 1830s. In France, the hold ofupper-c1ass
li.rndou'ning interests remained strong, but u,as challenged b1'
tl.re grorving power of middle-class commercial and industrial
clevelopment. Business people, bureaucrats, and managers
\vere part of an emerging elite based not on birth but on
ir-rtelligence and hard \\.ork. Dtlguerre's hurnble beginr-rir-rgs and
rise to prominence as a co-owner of the Diorama in Paris and,
subsequentll., in London made him something of a class hero.
B,v 1835, Daguerre'.s experlments u,ith Ni6pce's materials
slh.er plates, silr.er-plated copper plates, and iodine-1ed to his
concentratlng on the creation of a LATENT IMAGE-that is, an
image that had been registered on tl.re silver surtace of a plate,
but which was not yet visible. Like Ni6pce, u,ho treated Werv
.from the Window u,ith iodine tumes, Dagr"rerre realized that
treatments after exposure could elfectively bring out the image.
\Vhere Nidpce started with a visible image, and intensified the
tones usir.rg iodine fumes to give the picture greater contrast,
Daguerre found that there u,as a latent image on the exposed
silver plate, rvhich coulcl be treated rvith mercury fumes, lurther
der.eloping the picture and making it visible. Soorlafter, in 1837,

I
THE TNVENTTON OF "PHOTOGRAPHTES" | 13
 discovered that a solution of common table salt dissolved in stopped the response to light, and then carefully rinsed with
l.re
plain n ater.
hot rvater r,l,ould stop the light-sensitive material from contir-ruing
\Vith his success, Daguerre renegotiated the contract he
to react (Fig. 1.14).
had made rvith Ni6pce, r'r'hich was held by Ni6pce's son Isidore
In the end, Daguerre's photographic process lvas so simple
(1805-1868). In 1837, Daguerre demanded and received the
that he, like Ni6pce before him, began to lvorrv about someone
stealing it, and robbing him of both his place in histor,v and hls
right to call himself the inventor of the process, and to have the
long-sought linancial rervard. To make a DAGUERREoTYPE' p-..r, bear his nan-re. Isiclore Ni6pce secured his father's legacy
b,v getting Daguerre to agree that accounts of both photographic
u .opp., sheet plated r,vith sih'er rvas given a high polish' The
processes n ould be published together' Additionally, Daguerre
plirte, as it was called, was placed n'ith the 5111'31 5ide dorvn over
box containing iodine. The iodine fumes fused \r'ith the and Isidore Niepce arranged to market the processes by
a closed
silr.er to create silver iodide, which is light sensitil'e' The plate
subscription-that is, b,v seiling shares to the public' However'
ar.r initial attempt ir-r 1838 to cor]vince the public to buy shares
in
u'as then fitted into a camera obscura adapted for it and exposed
the ne$,business failed. Paradoxicalll', Daguerre's reputation for
to light. Exposure times varied, but the earliest daguerreotypes
creating opticai illusions at the Diorama seems to have made the
took about four to five minutes (Fig' 1.1), according to one of
public sttspicious of his methods. For a second attempt in late
the reports sent to the French Chamber of Deputies' The plate'
1838, Daguerre prepared a broadsheet describing his research
u'ith its latent image, was then put in a special box ar-rd exposed
and that of Niepce. He subtlv promoted his or'vn process, while
to mercury fumes, lvhich blended lvith the silver to produce
a visible image. The still light-reactive image rvas thoroughlv
paying sentimental, faintly belittling attention to Ni6pce's
u'ashed with a sodium chloride (table salt) solution, rvhich early elIorts. The broadsheet boasted that the daguerreotype

-*

tt
t

': t

LOUISTACQUES-MANDE DAGUERRE, Stifl LiJe (lnterior of a Cabinet of Curiosities), 1837. Daguerreotype'

Sctti frnqate de Photographie, Paris.

r{ , cnaprun oNE - THE ORIGINS OF PHOTOGRAPHY (TO 1839)

 9eUa,Jry &/.x.t€

1.15
JOHAN N KASPAR LAVATER, Sirhou ette Mochine, c,1780. Engraving from Lavatert Essoy s on Physiognomy. Cernsheim Collection.
Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.

THE TNVENTTON OF "pHOTOcRAPHtES' I ls

required onl), three to thirty minutes' outdoor exposure to light,
irnd speculated on fr.rture uses. Daguerre considered that the
claguerreotlpe u,ould be used by the "leisured classl' making
renderings of country houses, and pro",iding the means to "form
collections of all kindsl' "The little rvork it er-rtails," he concluded,
"u,ill greatly please ladies."Ir
At about the same time, Daguerre attempted to persr.rade
prominent scientists and artists to endorse his photographic
process. When the astronomer and politician Francois Arago
sau, the daguerreotype, he soon set about securing French
government assistance for the process. Government support
for science and inr,ention \ras an important f-eature of French
intellectual life.r5 With the sponsorship of a member of tl-re
French Academ,v of Science, and the approval of the Acaden.rr.,
a French citizen could approach the reler-ant government
department for funds. Arago, a liberal and progressive member
of the Chamber of Deputies, had alreadl,sponsored bills for
the der.elopment of the railroad and the telegraph. \\rhile he
mav have seen in Daguerre's process a counterpart to his ou,n
attempts to measure the intensity of 1ight, he also recognized that
the ingredients ofthe daguerreotype process rvere sulhcientlr.
simple and easily ar.ailable for the procedure to be quickll.
copied. Since copyright r.vould not readily secure rights to the
process, Arago cleverly suggested that the government provide
Daguerre and Isidore Ni6pce u.ith pensions, and that the nerv
process be magnanimouslv given to the world br.France.
1.16
H IPPOLYTE BAYARD, SelJ-Portrait as a Drowned e*.
Man, 184O. Direct paper positive. 5oci6t6 Franqaise de
Photographie, Paris.
Playing on the Romantic notion of the misunderstood artist
who commits suicide, Bayard penned a note on the back of
this photograph, suggesting that he ended his life in penniless
despair Noting the darkness of his hands and face, Bayard
added rhat these indicated decomposrrion, since no one even
came to the morgue to claim his bodylD
1n CHAPTER ONE - THE OR|G|NS OF PHOTOGRAPHY (TO 1839)
On Januarv 7, 1839, Arago made a statement to the French
Academt, of Scier.rce describing the process in general terms,
ar.rd ernpl.rasizir.rg the originality of Daguerre's invention. The day
before, H. Gaucheraud, a journalist writing for the Gazette de
Fronce, prer.ieu.ed the nerv process, suggesting that the fine detail
of the daguerreot,ype u.ould not substantially challenge drar,r,ing
and painting, because the appearance ofthe daguerreotype
u,as much closer to the look of engravings and of mezzotints, a
prlnting process able to produce a greater range oftones than
etchings and engravings.r"
RESPONSES TO THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF
THE DAGUERREOTYPE
Neu.s of Daguerre's invention '"r,as quickly broadcast, and caught
the attention of those who recalled related experiments and
those u.ho r,r,ere r,r,orking on similar photographic processes.
Francis Bauer, to rvhom Niepce had given some heliographs,
quickir.organized a British exhibit ofthese lvorks, in an effort to
publicize his deceased acquaintancet earlier accomplishments.
In a March 1839 paper on photography, Iohn Herschel recalled
that a book by Elizabeth Fulhame, View to a New Art of Dying
lsic) and Painting (1791), proposed capturing and retaining
images on cloth through the interaction of light and certain
metals.l: The historian of photography Pierre G. Harmant has
ffi.
]s:
.."&
#::i =!, ,re
&
= '.'.,:E
- :-=.
.- a
revealed that, from 1839 on, twenty-four persons claimed to have
invented photography.lB Among them,was Hippoiyte Bayard
i 1801-lBB7), who attempted to deduce Daguerre's process before
the specific information was released to the public.

BAYARD'S DIRECT POSITIVE PROCESS

Bar.ard, a minor official in the French Ministry of Finance with
no scientific training, responded to the 1839 announcement of
Daguerre's method by undertaking photographic experiments.
He aimed at making a direct positive print, such as that produced
br-Ni6pce and Daguerre, but one that he and others considered
:o be a simpler and more elegant process than theirs. Bayard
completely darkened light-sensitive paper that had been soaked
rn sodium chloride by exposing it to light. He then took the
blackened paper and soaked it again, this time in a solution
tripotassium iodide. When this paper was placed in a camera
obscura and exposed, the light bleached the paper according to
:ts intensity. Like the daguerreotype, Bayard's unnamed process
rroduced a single, unique print that could not be used as a
:egative to make multiple copies.
Hoping to share Daguerre's success, Bayard sholr,ed his
:mages to Arago, who was disconcerted by the prospect of
:nother inventor. Doubtless aware of such famous challenges
:!r discovery as the struggle betlveen British scientist Joseph
Priestley and French scientist A.-L. Lavoisier for the discovery
,--f oxygen, Arago secured some small funds to enable Bavard to
1.17
:ontinue his experiments, but asked him not to announce his JOHN HERSCHEL. Untitled,.l842. Cyanotype. Harry Ransom Humanities
indings. Although Bayard exhibited about thirty of his dlrect Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.

:ositive prints on luly 14, 1839, lack ofollicial recognition

:revented him from achieving Daguerre's celebrity. Uslng his
:irect positive process, Bayard created a comic yet critical
:esponse to his nation's neglect of his u,ork. in an image he
'.:tled Self-Portrait as a Drowned Man,Bayard photographed
-rimself feigning death by suicide (Fig. 1.16). Aithough
lavard's melodramatic pretense did not earn him the honor
:e desired, he did not drown himseli but lvent on to make
:irrther photographs, some of which, like his Self-Portrait, teased
::e viewer into thinking about what could be represented in
:rotography, and what could not (see p. 30; Fig. 2.12).
H ERSCH EL'S "PHOTOGRAPHIC SPECIMENS"
-r Britain, meanwhile, fohn Herschel, like many scientists,
--ecame intrigued with the recent announcement of the
:rguerreot)?e, even though the precise formula and materials
rad not been divulged. Two decades before, in 1819, Herschel
rad explored the properties of a chemical called hlposulphite of
.ocla, discovering that it wouid dissolve silver siilts. Hvro (nolv
:he term for sodium thiosulfate), used today in the development
rrocess of black-and-white photographl., got its nickname from
:lerschelt nineteenth-century work. Another of Herschelt early
:hotographic experiments was his 1831 exploration of the light
the last few days since hearing of Daguerre's secret & that Fox
Talbot has also got somet}ring of same kindl'20 On the very
next da,v, with no understanding of Daguerre's process, but a
r.r,ealth of knorvledge about light-sensitive chemicals and lenses,
Herschel succeeded in fixing a camera image and conceived
making prints from a negative image. On February 7,1839,
he showed some of his images at the Royal Society in London.
Writing to his friend and colleague'Ialbot a few days later, he
referred to his "photographic specimer.rs." Herschel was not the
only one of Talbot's correspondents to use the term. Charles
Wheatstone, the scientist and inventor of the stereoscope, wrote
to Talbot on February 2,1839, referring to Talbot's "photographic
experimentsl':r The u,ord "photographic" quickly evolved into
"photography;'the general term tbr the medium. (The term
photographie employed by Florence may have been used earlier,
but his work was unknown in Europe.)
Herschel's photographic investigations continued into
the 18,10s. He experimented with the possibilities of color
photography using vegetable dyes; he also used iron salts to
create a process he dubbed cyANorypE, which produced an
image in which the dorninant tones were deep Prussian blue
and u,hite (Fig. 1.17). Herschel was one of the first to voice the I

:eactions of platinum salts. democratlc potential of photography; of the cyanot)?e he rvrote

A fe'w,weeks after Daguerrei announcement, Herschel that every person might be a printer and a publisher.I \\rhile it
resan to try his luck n ith photography. ln his notebook for never became a major form of photography', the simplicitl'and t
anuary 29,1839, he wrote: "Expts [experiments] tried within lorv cost of the cyanotype made it a commercial success in the

RESPONSES TO THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DAGUERREOTYPE I 17

foclts
The Stranger
A ml,thical inventor of photography arrived late on the scene
during the 1850s. Accounts ofphotography's history, published
in iournals aimed at a general audience, recounted the
appearance of "the Stranger," a bedraggled man who enters the
but his poverty prevents him from buying the best instrument.
The Stranger recounts his attempts to fix the images in a camera
obscura, and shows Chevalier some photographs. As he is about
to depart the shop, the Stranger leaves a vial ofa secret brown
liquid with Chevalier, telling him that it is the substance that
produces photographs. The Stranger does not leave instructions
for its use, and when he does not return to the shop, Chevalier
asks Daguerre to try the brown liquid. Daguerre has no success,
but his attempts use up the mysterious substance.
L'inconnu monlrant un: i'preure pliotoglrphirluc ir ]1. Charlcs Chcvalicr. Dessin
is I cHenren oNE - THE ORICINS OF PHOTOGRAPHY (TO 1839)
As the story of the Stranger moved from source to source, it grew
in complexity. The Stranger became poorer, and his physical
Conjectures were added. Why did
the Stranger not return to Chevalier's shop? Did he end his days
in a charity hospital, shivering with cold and hunger? Did he
plunge himself into the Seine, discouraged that Daguerre, not he,
had got credit for photography? For a person ofgenius, the later
stories concluded, life's disappointments are sharper than for the
rest of us.
Like Hippolyte Bayardt self-portrait of himself as a drowned
man (see Fig. i.16), the story of the Stranger was infused
with notions of doomed Romantic genius. Indeed, it has been
speculated that Bayard's disheartening experience in gaining
acceptance for his photographic process may be the origin of
the story (Fig. 1.18).
1.18
ARTIST UNKNOWN,"The Stranger" from Francis
Wey, Comment le soleil est devenu peintre: histoire
du daguerrdotype et de la photographie. Mus6e des
dcil. 0uslare.hnct. Familles, June 1853. Wood engraving. Widener Library,
Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
1 8{0s, and a favorite at the er.rd of the nineteenth century for
rmateurs and scientists working in the field. Until the advent
oi digital image processing, it was rvidely used to produce
blueprints for architects and builders.
TALBOT'S PHOTOGEN IC DRAWI NG
'Change rules supreme in the affairs of meni'reflected Herschel's
:i-iend and scientific colleague Talbot, upon hearing about the
jrrguerreotype. Talbot had conceived fixing light-induced images
,:s early as 1833, and had also had some modest success the
-,rllorving year, well before Daguerre achieved provable results.
\ Iusing intentl;,, Talbot reflected on the quirk of fate by rvhich
-:::er har.ing devoted much labour and attention to the perfecting
.r:s inr.ention, and having nolr,brought it, as I think, to
,.
:ich it deserved the notice of the scientilic n orld,-that
.rLrment that I was then engaged in drawing up an account of it, to be
--:etented to the Royal Societr., the same invention should be announced
.:: France.l3
.rs historian Gail Buckland observed, "Talbot lvas staggered."}
:ie had no way of knou,ing whether his method was the same as
,.lat developed by Daguerre, but he sensed the prospect oflosing
.,:! clalm to be the first to capture a camera image.
Talbot, a multitalented British scientist, classical scholar, and
::quist, was educated at Cambridge University and lived at the
.,milv estate of Lacock Abbey. He dated his photographic efforts
, 1833, when he got disappointing results using a camera lucida
.. rn aid to dralving scenes near Lake Como in Italy. 'After
.,:ious fruitless attempts I laid aside the instrument and came
. ,the conclusion that its use required a previous klou,ledge of
-:arr'ing which unfortunately I did not possess," he recalled.
, then thought of trying again a method rvhich I had tried many
-:rs befbre," he continued:
-.. rnethod u.as, to take a camera obscura and to throrv the inrage of
'.: trbiects on a piece of paper in its focus-fairv pictures, creations of
- .:-ovement, ar-rd destined as rapidly to fade arva,v. It r,r.as
' -ights that the idea occurred to me-how charming it u,ou1d be if
.:re possible to cause these natural images to imprint themselves
.::blr', and remain fixed upon the paper.r'
Bv 1834 Talbot had experimented rvith tu,o methods of
- ...ns a photochemically induced image. The least known n as
, ::rilar to that concocted by Florence. While staying in Geneva,
r ',.itzerland, Talbot prepared glass piates by darkening them u,ith
-.:rdle smoke, varnishing the surface so that the soot would stay
: -,.lace. He then drew or wrote on the plates with a tool that cut
.-.:rrugh the black coating, and placed them over paper that had
::n r.nade light sensitive. When exposed to light, the lines of
-.:,'-rr'ing or writing were transferred to the paper. He suggested
.-.:t the technique could be used by friends to share letters
. -J irnages.26
In addition, Talbot formulated a rnethod of sensitizing paper
.,r:rl1ar to the procedure of \Vedgwood and Dar,y, although
.: .ater claimed not to have read their published results from
i l. Arrare of the light sensitivity of silver compounds,
discovered that the strength of a solutior.r of ordinary table salt
(sodium chloride) in water was key to making images and then
stopping the action of light. He first soaked paper in a weak
solution, and allowed it to dr).. He then applied a solution of
silver nitrate, u,hich reacted u,ith the sodium chloride to form
light-sensitive sih,er chloride. He did not put the sensitized paper
in a camera obscura, but placed an object to be copied-such
as a leat, lace, or fern frond-directly on the paper, sometimes
flattened it don n u,ith a piece of glass to make greater contact
rvith the paper, and then exposed the sandr,r,iched object to iight.
When the object rvas removed, a pale rendering of its shape
remained on the paper (Fig. 1.19). Depending on the strength of
the sunlight to r'r4rich it rvas exposed, from ten minutes to thirty
of
minutes \\rere necessary to make a print. The area surrounding
a point in
the image darkened due to exposure to light.
exactly at the
After the object u,as removed tiom the paper, Talbot had
to prevent the light area from darkening in response to further
exposure. He tried various chemicals to inhibit the continuing
action of light upon the paper, among them potassium iodide,
and a strong solution oftable salt. Because ofthe use oftable salt,
both in sensitizing the paper and in Iixing its image, the process
lvould eventually be called a sALr pRrNr. Talbot referred to his
work as pHorocENrc DRA\{rNG (that is, light-caused drawing)
or "sciagraphy" (shadorv rvriting). Prints such as these are
still made today, and thev are often cal1ed shadorvgraphs
OT PHOTOGRAMS.
Although a reminder in his notebook fbr May 1834 reads
"Patent Photogenic Drawing," Talbot did not do so.:; Since
each sheet ofpaper used in his technique had to be processed
separately, the results \vere uneven and labor-intensive. Perhaps
Talbot was waiting untii he could perfect the reliabilitv and
consistency of photogenic drarving. He continued to experiment
during these
1.19
WILLIAM HENRY FOX TALBOT, LeaJ,c. 1840. Metropolitan Museum of Art,
Talbot New York.
RESPONSES TO THE ANNOUNCEMENT OF THE DA6UERREOTYPE I Lg

Iua;Z M;Z-"t
/E- (i
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;aq+*tf /833'
/rt/-.r, i*a tno'{' ' '4t' t'q'ater
t' ttLli &i'24-{ 2oo ': :*:L'
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and, in 1835, he managed to make a picture after exposing
sensitized paper in a small camera (Fig. 1.20). In February of
that year, Talbot noted that his photogenic drawings might be
used to yield what he called a second drawing. In other words, he
conceived the photogenic drawing not simply as an end in itself,
but also as a NEGATIvn from which posrrrvE prints might be
made, although he did not actually use the term or print from
one of his early photogenic drawings.
In 1841, after improving the capability of photogenic
drawings to make multiple copies, Talbot would patent a
photographic process he called the carorvpE. The name derived
from kalos, the Greek word for "beautyi' Like the daguerreotype,
it made use of the latent image, the invisible picture on the
negative that had to be further developed after exposure in the
camera. Unlike the daguerreotype, with its single, unique picture,
the calotype produced a negative, from which many prints could
be made. Thus the caloQpe would become the basis for modern
photographic reproduction. But in the mid-1830s, before the
announcement of the daguerreotype, Talbot was losing interest
in his photographic experiments. He returned to his study
of mathematics and optics for more than three years, until
Daguerre's announcement spurred him to demonstrate not only
that his own method was original, but also that it had generated
photographs before 1839.
THE POLITICS OF INVENTION
Talbot read about Daguerre's image-making process within days
of the )anuary 7 , 1839, announcement, and quickly moved to
make his own work known. He wrote to Arago, claiming prior
invention, and prepared a paper titled "some Account of the Art
of Photogenic Drawing, or, the Process by which Natural Objects
May be Made to Delineate Themselves without the Aid of the
Artist's Pencili'which he read at the Royal Society on |anuary 31,
1839. The first exhibit of his photogenic drawings took place as
z0 | cHlnren oNE - THE oRlGlNs oF PHoToGRAPHY (To 1s39)
1.20
WI TLIAM H EN RY FOX TALBOT, LAttiCEd WiNdOW
Taken with the Camera Obscura, August 1835.
Photogenic drawing negative, mounted on blackened
paper. National Media Museum, Bradford, England'
part of the regr.rlar Friday e','ening lecture of the Royal Institution
on lanuarr'25, 1839. The scientist Michael Faraday (1791-1867)
spoke about Daguerre's invention, and then urged the audience
to examine a displa,v of Talbott work. The Literary Gazette
(Saturdal', Februarl'2, 1839) recorded that the purpose ofthe
exhibition rvas to establish Talbot's claim to original invention,
should he be challenged by Daguerre' The journal went on to
exclaim that "No human hand has hitherto traced such lines
as these drau,ings displayed; and what man may hereafter do,
norv that Dame Nature has become his drawing mistress, it is
impossible to predict."rs
\\rhi1e photography itself had not been predicted, many of
the nineteenth-century uses ofphotography were soon foreseen
after its disclosure in 1839. Arago, for instance, thought that it
could aid archeological research and restoration, and also be
ernployed as a kind of objective retina (rdtine physique) that
rvould assist scientists in studying the properties of light.re He
thought it might be used to record the art painted and incised
on the lvalls of ancient Eglptian buildings-a task begun in the
nineteenth centur\', yet still far from complete at the beginning of
tlre trlentr'-fi r-st century.
In his arguments for making the daguerreotype a French gift
to the norld, Arago also anticipated the mistrust and r'r'rangling
that ivould follou'the near simultaneous announcements of two
competing photographic processes. Talbot, for example, was very
rvarv of sholr.ing the French his process. Writing to Herschel in
Februarl. 1839, he suggested "that it might be best not to disclose
until
at present the rvashing out process, the retransfer & c.
brought to a statemore worthy of publication, inasmuch as the
Parisians rvould hardly be able to discover it immediately if it is
not part of Daguerre's process, & I ivish to shorv them that we
could do son-rething here rvhich they could not imitate as yet."rO
In France, Arago hastened to establish Daguerre as the
exclusive it.tventor of photography. He saw to it that Talbot agd
Herschel, along rvith other weil-known scientists, were boldly
invited to Paris to see tl-re daguerreotype and, presumably, to
witness its exceptional rendering ability. Talbot refused, but
asked Herschel, who was already planning a visit there, to view
Daguerre's work. "I shall be glad to hear from you, what you
think of theml'he wrote. "Whatever their merit, which no doubt
is very great, I think that in one respect our English method
must have the advantagel'"To obtain a second copy of the same
view," Talbot continued, "Daguerre must return to the same
locality & set up his instrument a second time; for he cannot
copy from his metallic plate, being opaque."3'
When Herschel saw Daguerre's pictures, he reported
back to Talbot that "it is hardly saying too much to call them
miraculous." The daguerreotFpes, he wrote, "surpass anything
I could have conceived as within the bounds of reasonable
expectation ... Every gradation of light & shade is given with a
softness & fidelity which sets all painting at an immeasurable
distance." Herschel also added that the exposure time needed for
Daguerre's process was very short.32 In effect, Talbot's respected
colleague and friend was compelled to acknowledge the visual
superiority of the daguerreot)?e, a diference in quality so
great that it seemed to trivialize Talbots objection that the
daguerreotype could not make multiple copies.
When Daguerre's Diorama burned to the ground in
March 1839, Arago strengthened his efforts to award him a
pension and to claim the invention ofphotography for France.
He wrote to the minister of the interior hinting that various
nations had made Daguerre tempting offers, which the inventor
refused. Arago also arranged a display of daguerreotypes for the
Chamber of Deputies, and showed the process to the Chamber of
Peers. In addition, he orchestrated the major themes of various
formal reports presented to these two chambers. In the Chamber
of Deputies, Arago stressed the potential scientific importance
of Daguerret invention to the science of photometry (measuring
the properties of light) and astronomy. His friend and scientific
colleague ]oseph Louis Gay-Lussac (1778-1850) reiterated the
notion in the Chamber of Peers. Both attempted to raise national
pride and rouse a rivalry with Britain by pressing the need to
make photography a French cultural achievement. Arago and
Gay-Lussac stirred memories of the contest between British
RETAKE
Compared to the steam engine, another prominent creation
that altered nineteenth-century life, the first invention of
photography was swift. The rudimentary steam engine was
patented at the end of the seventeenth century, but not perfected
until the dawn of the lndustrial Revolution. Despite the centuries-
long history of the camera obscura and other mechanical
means to aid drawing, such as the silhouette machine and the
physionotrace, the photograph_seems to have been conceived and
invented during a fifty-year period culminating in its presentation
to the world in 1839.
and French linguists to translate the Rosetta Stone, which led
to the modern understanding of Egyptian hieroglyphics, and
they alluded to the dispute between France and England as to
the origin of the Gothic style in architecture. At a time when
memories of the Napoleonic.Wars between the two countries
were still fresh, clear claim to the invention of photography
would be read as evidence ofnational superiority.
In this effort to make Daguerre the sole inventor, reports on
his process made to the Chamber of Deputies, Chamber of Peers,
and the French Academy of Science distanced his achievement
frorfl that of Ni6pce. Arago insisted that the daguerreotlpe was
"entidrement neuf" (entirely new), and that Daguerret work
of genius was threatened by the eflorts of would-be geniuses.33
From fanirary to August 1839, when ihe p.oiesr had its first
public demonstration, Daguerre's reputation as an original
intellect steadily grew. During that period, no details of his
process were revealed, enveloping iii. aJg"i.fioryptild itt
innentor in lrrEiistiSle mystery. Indeed, although he was required
to produce a booklet describing the daguerreotlpe process in
detail, Daguerre never revealed exactly how he developed it,
but allowed tales of fortuitous accidents and miraculous visual
events to fill in the blanks. In the end, he and Isidore Ni6pce
secured government pensions, with Daguerre receiving the
larger of the two.
The excitement following the first public demonstration
of Daguerre's process, at the joint meeting of the Academy of
Science and the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris on August 19,
1839, was captured by Marc-Antoine Gaudin (1804-1880), a
maker of optical instruments:
We all felt an extraordinary emotion and unknown sensations which
made us madly gay ... Everyone wanted to copy the view offered by
his window, and very happy was he who at first attempt obtained a
silhouette of roofs against the sky: he was in ecstasies over the stove-
pipes; he did not cease to count the tiles on the roofs and the bricks of
the chimneys; he was astonished to see the cement between each brick;
in a word, the poorest picture caused him unutterable joy, inasmuch as
the process was then new and appeared deservedly marvellous.3a
Not one, but several approaches to photography were made
available: the daguerreotype, with its sharp and detailed picture;
the calotype, which displayed more muted tones; and the
photogenic drawing, a contact print often recording bits of nature,
such as leaves. While the daguerreotype was a unique image-that
is, it could not be easily copied-rhe calotype and the photogenic
drawing could create a negative from which copies were made. ln
photography's second invention, during the fifteen years following
1839, the social, artisric, and scientific potentials of its first inventiSn
were investigated and debated.
RETAKE I 21
into Asia, Africa, and Latin America provided fresh vistas to
be photographed, and a persuasive visual means to rationalize
foreign adventurism.
TALBOT AND IHE PENCIL OF NATURE
everyday life, an example 'bf the early beginnings of a new artl'rs
Larry Schaafhas observed that the photograph draws on the
doorway as a traditional spnbol of the passage between life and
light, and death and darkness.l5
The Open Door was included as plate 5 in Talbot's b ookThe

While Daguerre took little part in 1!9 development of
photography after 1839, Talb5t c-911inued lis efforts His 1839
accountof photogenicdrl$rlg,:q-n-e-e-iv=q{-t-he-pholqgraphic
image as u ki"d o{:t4Uld-ryg1i]|*ith potential for science
and art. He w-e4! g-a!o -expl9,r9"bSt-h thqse aspecl-s-.,...-
fUJ.SSIalhSt produced what maybe the worldt first -
ffitomicrograpb)that is, a photograph of a magnified small
:mi-..-fr"is"Aeuevea tiiiit fh<ito graphy would "be especially
useful for naturalists since one can copy the most difficult
things, fo.r instance crystallizations and minute parts of plants,
with a great deal of easgi'1n bolbips-alse!(rested in its art
applications. He considqtffl DoorlN. 2.7), in which
e O?e-n
treemulatedsevent;enth>61frtDilE]6;-tingof scenesfrom
Pencjl of Nature,whichhe published in six sections, between
tr'4ffinil18a6]bne of the first books illustrated with actual
photographs rather than engraved versions, The Pencil oiNat"e
qorffit*e.tty-iou. calotype ima[es. Since the calotype
prociliS er"ut6d a negailve, from which positive prints could
be made, actual calotypes were tipped in (pasted at the corners
Tii the page). Each image was accompanied by an explanatory
lexl. The Pencil of Nature demonstrated the breadth of Talbot's
investigation into the applications of photography. Some images,
such as Articles of China, showed photographyt record-keeping
ability (I'ig. 2.8), while others demonstrated how photography
could variously depict biological specimens, architecture, and
sculpture, and reproduce sketches and engravings' Talbot even

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a calotype negative'
wlLLlAM HENRy FOX TAL BOT,The open Door,1844, plate 5 from The Pencil oJ Nature,1A44-46.Saltprint from

2g Csnpln TWO - THE SECOND ;NVENT1ON OF PHOTOGRAPHY (1s39-18s4)


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oJ China, plate 3 from The Pencil oJ
wlLL|AM HENRY FOX TALBOI Articles
Noture,1844-46. Calotype. Fox Talbot Collection. National Media Museum'
Bradford, England.
suggested that in the future photographs might be taken in the
dark, making possible secret surveillance.
Throughout the 1840s, Talbot mingled art, science, and
what would e\.entuaily be cal1ed documentary photographlr
in such works as the series ofhaystack studies produced on
his propert,v. Early on, he understood photograph,v's abilit,v to
present a sequence of images, the meaning of rvhich proceeded
not just from one example, but from all of them and from their
arrangement. As the French Impressionist painter Claude
2.9
Wl tLl A M H E N RY FOx TA L BOT, The H ay stack, lr om Th e P encil of N atu re'
Department of Special Collections, Glasgow University Library, Glasgow Scotland'
published in Talbot,s The Pen cil oJ Nature, the platelhe Haystack became especially
popular with the public, perhaps because the new medium of photography was used
to pay homage to an agricultural practice that endured into the modern era'
Monet (1840-1926) would do later in the nineteenth century,
Talbot studied the effects oflight, and he also delighted in the
conliguration of geometric shapes found in the natural and built
environment s. The Haystack is a virtuoso piece, taken rvhen the
light best revealed the prickly surface ofthe stack and as shadows
defined its sturd,v geometry (Fig' 2.9). The image's hegative
(Fig. 2.10) further reveals its compositional values' Talbot
thought to accentuate the leaning ladder and its upright shadow'
Talbot also pursued commercial experiments with
photographv Exploitlng the calotype's abilitl' to furnish
muitiple prints, he founded a photographic studio and printing
establishment in Reading, a tolvn about forty miles west of
London (Fig. 2.11). The business u'as part of the mid-century
industrialization of photography; here Taibot produced The
Pencil of Nature as rve1l as other views for sale.
BAYARD: THE DOUBTING CAMERA
After Hippollte Bayard produced his Self-Portrait as a
Drowned Man (see Fig. 1.16), he continued to test the limits
of photographic representation, sometimes exploring ways in
which it could be misleading or unsettling (Fig. 2.12)' Some
contemporary viewers recognized Bayard's unusual approach;
Francis Welr wrote that Bayard's images united "the impression
of realit,v l,ith the fantasy of dreamsl"i Ultimately, Bayard took
up both daguerreotype and calotlpe photography, in which he
enloyed professional success' In some photographs he lingered
on the textural richness and attractive shapes ofsuch ordinary
objects as 1ear.es, tools, stone, and straw. But a teasing sense
continued to inform his r'vork: what the eye sees, and what the
photograph records, maY not be trustworthy.
2.10
WlLtlAM HEN RY FOX TALBOT, negative of 7h e Haystackfrom The Pencil oJ
Nature. National Media Museum, Bradford, England'
THE SECOND INVENTION