The death of Joseph Niepce and the Introduction of the Daguerreotype

From the years of 1829 right up until his death in 1833, Niepce and Daguerre worked rigorously to develop and improve the version that Niepce had once begun with. When Niepce mysteriously passed away in 1833, Daguerre took it upon himself to keep experimenting and improving what they had both been previously working on. In fact just 3 years later, in 1836, Daguerre developed a latent image that he managed to treat and fix and this resulted in the "Daguerreotype". 

By studying the light sensitive properties of silver salts he came to a conclusion that these silver salts would be perfect to use in order to reduce exposure time. He experimented by 'fixing' the images onto a sheet of silver-plated copper, polishing the silver itself and then glazing it with Iodine, which resulted in a surface that became light sensitive. Once this process was done, he then put the plate in a camera and exposed it, but this time only for a few minutes. Once the image had been properly exposed, he then soaked the plate in silver chloride. In doing all of this, Daguerre was able to achieve what he had been dreaming of: A lasting image, and one that would not fade away and that would not change if it were to be exposed to light.

One of Daguerre's first Daguerreotype images: "Boulevard Du Temple"

The Daguerreotype had distinctive characteristics that truly made unique. Daguerre's photographic images were extremely precise, sharp and rich in detail and this was one of the main things that really attracted people to have their "picture taken". The only downside of the Daguerreotype is that it could not be reproduced (only one image) and although at the time no one knew it was possible, this flaw would later prove to be a great downfall. 

Below is a link to a very interesting video that I stumbled upon while conducting research about "The Daguerreotype".

[The Daguerreotype process - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmm90yhhuJM]

References:

1) Bellis,M, 2013, "History of Photography and the Camera". [online]
Available - http://inventors.about.com/od/pstartinventions/a/stilphotography.htm

[Accessed 23rd October, 2013]

2)Wikipedia.org [online] Available - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Daguerre

[Accessed 23rd October, 2013]