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daguerreian studio was opened in late 1842 on the roof
of the Royal Hotel in Sydney. The fi rst professional
daguerreotypists also arrived in Mexico in the early
1840s, capturing the likenesses of wealthy families in
Mexico City, of landowners in the provinces, and of
traders on the coasts, despite the limited availability of
the necessary chemicals and the challenging climate.
By 1845, Russian daguerreotypists had succeeded in
adapting the process to capture images on brass and
copper instead of more expensive silver. The Canadian
daguerreotypists Eli J. Palmer and Thomas Coffi n Do-
ane submitted samples of their high-quality work to
the Paris Exhibition of 1855, where they were awarded
honorable mention against the tough competition of
the best daguerreian artists working in France and the
United States.
As the ranks of daguerreotypists throughout the
world swelled, some sought a commercial advantage
by outfi tting their studios with luxurious interiors and
fl attering portraits of prominent clients. Although the
daguerreotype initially had been promoted as an art
form made without an artist’s intervention, as competi-
tion among daguerreotypists increased and prices for a
portrait dropped, those who charged more for their im-
ages increasingly separated themselves from less-skilled
daguerreian “operators” by designating themselves as
daguerreian “artists.”
In America, the studios of such noted artists as Albert
Sands Southworth and Josiah Johnson Hawes in Boston
and Mathew B. Brady in New York and Washington,
D.C., became destinations for the nation’s most eminent
citizens to be daguerreotyped. At the tonier studios,
a full-plate portrait could cost more than fi ve dollars
and a “mammoth” plate, measuring as much as fi fteen
by seventeen inches, sold for the extravagant sum of
fi fty dollars; however, most daguerreotypists charged a
dollar or less for a sixth-plate or smaller cased picture.
By the 1850s, prices had dropped to as little as twelve-
and-a-half cents for two portraits taken by an ordinary
daguerreotypist. The largest American studios, capable
of taking as many as a thousand pictures a day, typically
divided the labor of the process among several people,
including a plate preparer, a camera operator, and painter
who could add color tinting to the image for an addi-
tional charge. By 1849, the daguerreotypist had become
such a familiar fi gure in American society that an article
in the popular magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book declared,
“In our great cities, a daguerreotypist is to be found in
almost every square; and there is scarcely a county in
any state that has not one or more of these industrious
individuals busy at work in catching ‘the shadow’ ere
the ‘substance fade’” (qtd. in Rudisill, 1971, 199).
Even as daguerreian portraiture became a common-
place of mid-nineteenth century life, fi rst-time visitors
to a daguerreotypist’s studio often were disappointed
with both the experience and the result of being photo-
graphed. Comical stories of the frustrating experience of
seeing oneself in a daguerreotype abound in European
and American periodicals from the 1840s and ’50s.
Discomfi ted by the use of restraining head braces, by the
obligation of sitting still for the time of exposure, and by
the limitations on colors and patterns that one could wear
while being daguerreotyped, sitters frequently com-
plained that they appeared uncomfortable and unnatural
in their portraits. Others were displeased with the detail
with which the less-fl attering aspects of their appear-
ance were too-faithfully imaged. To discuss strategies
for dealing with unsatisfi ed customers, and to publicize
the latest advances in daguerreian technology, trade
journals such as La Lumière, The Daguerreian Journal,
and The Photographic Art Journal were established.
Articles recommending techniques for redirecting light
and for posing sitters in positions that highlighted their
best features, and diminished their worst, appeared
regularly in such publications alongside discussions of
new equipment and processing techniques.
In England, however, daguerreotypy was less widely
practiced, due to Daguerre and Niépce having patented
the process there. They also authorized their patent
agent to sue anyone who made, displayed, or sold
daguerreotypes without permission. In 1846, only four
daguerreian studios were operating in all of London.
Such restrictions, along with Talbot’s continuing work
on negative-to-positive photography, contributed to
the English development of the wet collodion process.
Once photographers learned this method of producing
high-quality photographic images much more quickly,
easily, cheaply than the most refi ned daguerreian pro-
cess would permit, the daguerreotype effectively was
outmoded. Although it continued to be practiced with
some obstinacy in the United States into the 1860s, the
rest of the world largely had abandoned the daguerreian
process by the mid-1850s.
Marcy J. DiniusSee also: Advertising of Photographic Products;
Arago, François Jean Dominique; Books illustrated
with photographs: 1840s; Brady, Mathew B.;
Calotype and Talbotype; Camera Accessories; Camera
design: 1. 1830s–1840s; Camera design: 2. 1850s;
Cased Objects; Coloring by Hand; Daguerre, Louis
Jacques Mandé; Davy, Sir Humphry; Developing;
Fizeau, Louis Armand Hippolyte; Hill, Levi L.;
Historiography of Nineteenth-Century Photography;
History: 1. Antecedents and Proto-Photography up
to 1826; History: 2. 1826–1839; History: 3. 1840s;
History: 4. 1850s; Itinerant Photographers; Latent
Image; Lenses: 1. 1830s–1850s; Morse, Samuel
Finley Breese; Southworth, Albert Sands and Hawes,
Josiah Johnson; Niépce, Joseph-Nicéphore; Petzval,