تثبيت الصورة - ٢ - تاريخ التصوير الضوئي .. كتاب التصوير الضوئي

Image fixation - 2 - History of photography .. Book of photography

Daguerreotypes were positive images that could not be drawn on, in addition to being fragile and difficult to handle due to their shiny surface. The physicist and astronomer François Arago was able to secure financial assistance from the French government for the inventor, and thus he was able to improve the method in the following way: A silver plate was treated with iodine vapors and placed in a black room, and then the latent or hidden image appeared by means of mercury rays that could stick to the parts exposed to the sun on the silver-iodine plate. The plate was fixed with sodium hyposulfite and then dried by a flame. The image was sealed tightly under glass to preserve the mercury-sensitive surface and to prevent oxidation of the silver. Thus, the daguerreotype was the best "mirror of nature" discovered up to that date.

The art of painting is dead from today, as stated by the artist Paul de la Roche when he displayed the daguerreotype box. On August 19, 1839, at a general meeting of the Académie Scientifique in Paris, Daguerre demonstrated the photographic image and its mechanism, and within hours people were rushing to the opticians' shops in Paris to buy, at any price, the device that produced the images.

Daguerre published a booklet entitled History and Description of the Method, called the Daguerreotype, illustrated with some drawings. The information helped every manufacturer to produce this device. During the five months that followed, more than 30 publications, summaries, and translations were published in London, Petersburg, Barcelona, ​​Genoa, Berlin, Stockholm, and New York. Thus was born the method that would become the main tool for communication and visual archives.

Introduction of the Daguerreotype:

The first known daguerreotype is the image on the left, a still life taken in Daguerre's studio in 1837, and is now owned by the Société Française de l'Impression in Paris. The image (above) shows another, more subdued model in a gold frame.

Early Photographers:

Above, a drawing by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce by Lagèche in 1765. Niépce lived between 1795 and 1833. Below, a daguerreotype by Louis Daguerre (1787-1851), inventor of the method by which Maillol photographed him in 1846.

Work of the inventor:

Rue de la Temple, Paris: a daguerreotype taken by Daguerre in 1838-39, now in the National Museum in Munich.

Daguerreotypes:

The top device, made in 1839, consists of two nested boxes: Below, an American model made in 1851 with bellows.