Daguerrotypes
The Birth of Modern Photography

The daguerreotype was developed in the mid-1800s by French chemist and physicist Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre. Its invention is often considered to be the birth of modern photography because it was the first method of capturing images on a light-sensitive material. Although the daguerreotype was technically the first modern form of photography, it was not the first attempt at creating a process of capturing images on film. Daguerre’s invention of the daguerreotype was preceded two years earlier by Englishman William Henry Fox Talbot’s invention of the calotype. This form of photography is a “positive” image where the image is pressed onto paper instead of being “printed” onto a light-sensitive material like the daguerreotype.