LJM Daguerre

Happy Birthday LJM Daguerre!! Known for his photographic process which carries his name (daguerreotype) this artist was born in 1787 in France. He began as a scene painter for the opera. Following experiments with the camera obscura to create a diorama display, Daguerre worked with Joseph Niepce who had previously experimented with preserving projected images on pewter. Niepce died before the pair could perfect what Daguerre ultimately finished: a luminous image on silver, a daguerreotype. This process was quickly accepted by the public and daguerreotype studios were established across the US. However with time it fell out of favor due to the glaring effect of the silver, the poisonous mercury required for the process and the inability to reproduce the images. The Louvre From the Left Bank of the Seine (1839) is the daguerreotype below.