677
Gernsheim, Alison and Helmut, L.J.M. Daguerre: The History
of the Diorama and the Daguerreotype, 2nd rev. ed., New
York: Dover, 1968.
Marignier, Jean-Louis, Niépce, L’Invention de la Photographie.
Paris: Belin, 1999.
Mentienne, Adrien, La Découverte de la photographie en 1839,
avec Description du procédé faite aux chambres législatives
par Daguerre inventeur, Paris: Paul Dupont, 1892.
Pinson, Stephen C., Speculating Daguerre, Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 2006.
Pritchard, Michael, ed., Technology and Art: The Birth and Early
Years of Photography. Bath: Royal Photographic Society
Historical Group, 1990.
Schaaf, Larry, Out of the Shadows: Herschel, Talbot and the
Invention of Photography, London and New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1992.
HISTORY: 3. PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE
1840s
The British Quarterly Review of June 1842 wrote of “...
those new arts which are on the eve of altering the forms
and habits of social life.” It listed railways, locomotive
engines, tunnels, steam-boats, and steam-guns, improve-
ments in gas-lighting, and lighthouses; the electrotype,
voltaic gilding and plating, the electro-magnetic tele-
graph and the electromagnetic clock. Signifi cantly, it
went on to claim that these new arts, “...along with the
Daguerreotype of Niépce and Daguerre and the Calotype
of Mr Fox Talbot, constitute the leading inventions of
the day,” This is a revealing insight into the range and
scope of technological innovation that was transform-
ing the lives of millions of people during the fi rst half
of the nineteenth century, but also a refl ection of the
impact made on contemporary opinion by the invention
of photography. Although the earliest images shown in
1839 were produced with diffi culty and were far from
perfect, they had been received with astonishment and
delight. The decade that followed was a period of trial
and experimentation as the fi rst practitioners of the
new art struggled to improve processes and techniques
they imperfectly understood using equipment barely
adequate for the task.
For a few months following the announcement of
photography, there was considerable confusion about
the nature of the two pioneer processes, which was not
surprising as there were few examples of images from
either process to be seen. Opportunities outside of the
major cities were negligible. The English photographer,
John Werge, later described how as a fourteen year old,
hundreds of miles from London, he was “ fi red with a
desire to obtain a sight of these “sun pictures” but the
fi re was kept smouldering for some time before my de-
sire was gratifi ed.” By the beginning of 1840 however,
more examples were becoming accessible to the public
and the differences between the mirror-like images of
the daguerreotype and Talbot’s photogenic drawings
on paper began to be appreciated. The highly polished
metal plates of the daguerreotype image could contain
exquisite detail but their soft surface required protection
by glass and each image was a unique direct positive; no
negative was involved. Talbot’s images on paper were
crude by comparison but, most importantly, his process
involved production of a negative from which an almost
unlimited number of positives could be produced. Both
processes required long exposure times, which allowed
only static subjects to be captured on plate or paper,
even in ideal conditions. They were also imperfect in
many other respects but both were soon dramatically
improved.
Improvements to the daguerreotype process took
place by a series of small steps. In London during
1840, John Goddard found that bromine vapour could
be used to increase the sensitivity of the plates and An-
toine Claudet discovered that mixtures of bromine and
chlorine had the same effect. Similar discoveries were
made independently in Vienna. The French physicist,
Hippolyte Fizeau’s method of toning with gold, which
toughened the fragile surface of the daguerreotype plate
and increased the contrast of the image, was another
widely adopted innovation of 1840. Improvements were
also made to daguerreotype camera lenses. Particularly
signifi cant was a lens designed by the Austrian scientist,
Josef Max Petzval and manufactured for him by the
optician, Peter Friedrich Voigtlander. The mathemati-
cally computed Petzval was a large aperture lens, twenty
times faster than the lens fi tted to Daguerre’s original
camera.
Talbot also worked hard to improve his photogenic
drawing process and by the summer of 1840 had made
some progress. Samples of his work received good
reviews in the press and from his friends. Examples
shown to the young Queen Victoria and her new con-
sort, Prince Albert, were also favourably received. In
September 1840 he discovered that by using gallic
acid as a sensitising agent a latent image was formed,
which could be developed to a visible image. This was
a dramatic discovery that shortened exposure times to
a few minutes, even seconds under ideal conditions.
Talbot called his new process the calotype, which also
became known as the Talbotype.
During 1840 it became evident that the improve-
ments to both pioneer processes would allow the excit-
ing prospect of commercial portrait photography to
become a reality. In this application of photography,
the New World was in advance of the Old. Americans
became interested in using the daguerreotype process to
capture living subjects as soon as full practical details
became available in September1839. John W Draper
and Alexander S Wolcott may have been successful
within a month. It was certainly Wolcott who opened the
world’s fi rst commercial photographic portrait studio inHISTORY: 3. PHOTOGRAPHY IN THE 1840s