156: Daguerreotype First Displayed


On this date in 1839, the French government presented the patent rights to the early photography process of daguerreotype as a gift to the world.
Here are a few things you may not know about Louis Daguerre and his process.
First, Daguerre was born near Paris in 1787 and was a noted theater designer and later invented the diorama. In 1829 he began working with Nicephore Niepce, who had previously developed heliography, a photoengraving process.
In the daguerrotype process, a thin sheet of silver-plated copper is coated with light-sensitive silver iodide. The plate then is exposed in a camera. The image is developed by exposing the plate to mercury vapors and then fixing the image by removing the rest of the silver iodide with a saltwater solution.
In 1838, Daguerre took the first candid photograph of a person. In a street scene called “Boulevard du Temple” two men at a shoeshine stand were motionless enough to be captured by the lengthy daguerreotype exposure.
Daguerre died in 1851 at the age of 63
Our question, What was the only country in which Daguerre retained patent rights to his process?


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