Daguerreotype

A photograph made on a polished silver-coated copper plate, exposed in a camera and developed with chemical vapors. Each image is a unique, mirror-like positive that cannot be reproduced directly from its plate.

Silver-plated copper: Copper coated with a thin layer of silver, used as the image-bearing surface in a daguerreotype. Polishing this surface created the reflective ground on which the image formed.
Louis Daguerre: A French artist and inventor who developed the daguerreotype process with support from the French state. His name became attached to the photographic process he announced in 1839.
Calotype: A photographic process patented by William Henry Fox Talbot that used paper negatives to produce positive prints. Unlike the unique daguerreotype plate, a calotype negative could produce multiple prints.
Daguerreotype portrait: A portrait photograph made on a silvered copper plate using the daguerreotype process. Portrait studios made this the process’s most familiar commercial use.
Portrait photography: Photography made primarily to represent the appearance or identity of a person or group. The daguerreotype helped make photographic portraiture commercially available.
Iodine: A chemical element whose vapor reacts with silver to form light-sensitive silver iodide. Iodine vapor sensitized the polished plate before camera exposure.
Nicéphore Niépce: A French inventor who made some of the earliest surviving camera photographs using light-sensitive coatings. Daguerre’s process grew from his earlier photographic collaboration with Niépce.
Ambrotype: A wet-plate collodion image on glass that appears positive against a dark backing. Both appear as direct positives, but the ambrotype uses glass rather than silvered copper.
Mathew Brady: An American photographer known for portraits of political figures and documentation of the American Civil War. His early portrait studio helped establish daguerreotype portraiture in the United States.
Photographic studio: A workplace equipped for making photographs, often including controlled lighting and a camera setup. Daguerreotype portrait demand supported dedicated studios and specialized operators.

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