Happy Birthday Louis Daguerre (221 years old)

Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre
Born November 18th 1787

For many of those that are slowly forgetting what film is, may be drawing up blank at the mention of the Daguerreotype. But photography would not be what it is today with out this Artist and Chemist. The Daguerreotype is an image exposed directly onto a mirror-polished surface of silver bearing a coating of silver halide particles deposited by iodine vapor. The daguerreotype is a negative image, but the mirrored surface of the metal plate reflects the image and makes it appear positive in the proper light. Thus, daguerreotype is a direct photographic process without the capacity for duplication.

While the daguerreotype was not the first photographic process to be invented, earlier processes required hours for successful exposure, which made daguerreotype the first commercially viable photographic process and the first to permanently record and fix an image with exposure time compatible with portrait photography.

Here's to you Luis-