On August 19, 1839, the French Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Arts held a special meeting to announce the Daguerreotype to the public, announcing the official birth of photography. Since then, photography has been widely used as a practical method.
1. Daguerre and Niepce
The inventor of the Daguerreography method, Louis-Jacquis Mande Daguerre (1787~ 1851), was a painter in Paris, France.
Daguerre was famous for his invention of the "diorama" in his early years. He used large landscape paintings and specially controlled lighting effects to allow the audience to see some famous buildings in the world through a small hole. and unfamiliar places for entertainment purposes.
When making these large-scale landscape paintings, in order to pursue realistic and realistic effects, Daguerre often used a camera obscura to draw first drafts and then enlarged them according to proportion. Gradually, he became interested in the camera obscura and began to study ways to permanently preserve the images displayed on the "camera obscura" display. An accidental incident later led him to get acquainted with Nips, who took the first photo. With the help of Nips, he invented the Daguerreotype photography method.
(1) Chevalier Optical Equipment Store
At that time, there was an optical equipment store in Paris. The owner, Chevalier (1804~1859), was a famous optical equipment store. Home. Therefore, many people who were interested in the camera obscura often visited this optical equipment store and asked Chevalier about some optical issues such as the camera obscura, lenses, and image clarity. Daguerre was also a frequent visitor here, coming here almost every week to hold discussions with Chevalier.
Consciously or unconsciously, the first explorers of photography in Paris used Chevalier’s optical equipment store as a place for communication and gathering. Many of the latest news about camera obscura research were exchanged here. Communicate and spread the word.
(2) From acquaintance to cooperation
One day in 1826, a colonel officer walked into the store to buy lenses. The colonel's name was David Niepce, and he was Niepce's cousin who took the first photo.
After seeing the camera obscura in the counter, Colonel David told the boss Chevalier that his cousin had been able to fix the image in the camera obscura. Upon hearing the news, Chevalier quickly took out a pen and paper and carefully wrote down the name and address of the colonel's cousin.
A few days later, Daguerre came to the store and Chevalier told him that a man had been able to fix the image in the camera obscura. Daguerre hurriedly asked the man's name, and Chevalier wrote him the man's name and address: his name was Nips, and he lived in Chalons.
Daguerre soon wrote a letter to Niepce asking him how to fix the image in the camera obscura. Nippes did not reply after receiving the letter. He burned the letter because he thought "another Parisian wanted to steal my invention." All good things come to an end, and the first contact between the two inventors was aborted.
Daguerre waited for nearly a year but still had not received a reply from Nips, so at the end of January 1827, he tried to write another letter to Nips, clarifying in the letter He expressed that he wanted to fix the image in the camera obscura. He said he tried many times and made some progress, but it was still not enough. He sincerely hopes that the two people will cooperate to complete this great invention. This time Nips finally wrote back, and from then on, their correspondence became frequent.
In August 1827, another accidental event caused the two inventors to meet in Paris. Because Nips's brother in England became seriously ill, Nips and his wife went to London to visit him. Nips went to Paris first and applied for a visa to London, which would not be available until eight days later. Perhaps it was the opportunity created by history that allowed the two inventors to meet. During the eight days of waiting for a visa, Nips met Daguerre. The two hit it off and exchanged the results of their respective research.
On December 14, 1829, this was a memorable day. Nips and Daguerre signed an agreement in Chalons, and the two officially began to cooperate. To this end, they established a company called "Nips-Daguerre", with its registered address in Paris. The agreement stipulates that both parties are obliged to inform the other party of their invention methods and test results, and the proceeds will be divided equally between them.
(3) Unexpected discovery
After the agreement was signed, Nips told Daguerre his "solar etching method" and its production process, and said that this method Still very elementary. After Daguerre completed his studies, he returned to Paris to continue his research. At this time, an unexpected discovery made significant progress in his research.
When Daguerre left the laboratory after finishing his work that day, he accidentally placed a silver coffee spoon on a silver-plated plate. At the same time, he also forgot to put the cap of a bottle containing mercury on it. Put on the lid. When he returned to the laboratory the next day, he unexpectedly found the shape of the spoon imprinted on the silver-plated plate. He immediately searched for the relationship between these substances in the laboratory, and finally discovered that it was mercury vapor that made objects develop.
This discovery made Daguerre feel like a treasure, and he immediately told Nips, who was skeptical. Therefore, Daguerre had to study alone. Unfortunately, before he could succeed, Nips died of a cerebral hemorrhage on July 5, 1833. After Niepce's death, the partnership agreement with Daguerre was inherited by his son.
2. The advent of daguerreotype
After discovering the secret of mercury vapor developing objects, Daguerre finally successfully invented the method of fixing images in 1837 after repeated trials , he named this method "Daguerreotype-Daguerreotype".
The Daguerreophotography method is a direct positive image method. Its basic method is to first coat a copper plate with a layer of silver and then fumigate it with iodine vapor to obtain a silver iodide photoreceptor. Then, the silver iodide photoreceptor is exposed in a dark box, and then fumigated and developed with mercury vapor. Finally, the unexposed silver iodide is washed away with hypowave solution to fix the image.
Daguerreotypes have high definition, rich layers, and delicate images, but they also have some congenital flaws. Even so, as the first photography technique at that time, Daguerreography still made outstanding contributions to the history of photography.
Next, Daguerre began to look for shareholders, hoping to use social fundraising methods to promote and realize his invention. However, people at that time did not understand photography, a new thing, and no one was willing to invest in this project. So Daguerre thought of selling invention patent rights to the government. He believes that if invention patent rights are owned by individuals, they will never benefit society. Only if they are purchased by the state and made public to the world, can its value be realized through the power of everyone.
Daguerre found the astronomer and congressman Arago (1786~1853), hoping that he could come forward to persuade the government to purchase his invention. After seeing the image on the metal plate, the far-sighted Arago "almost fainted with excitement" and immediately realized that this was an epoch-making invention.
With the strong recommendation of Arago and another parliamentarian Guy-Lussac, in 1839, the French government bought the patent rights of Daguerre's photography method and announced it to the whole country, making everyone Anyone can use this invention free of charge. As a reward, the French government paid Daguerre 6,000 francs a year and Nips' son a lifetime salary of 4,000 francs.
Shortly after the promulgation of the Daguerre Photographic Law, the "Daguerre Photography Manual" was published. It is the earliest book introducing photography in the world. It was sold out as soon as it came out. 29 editions were published within 4 months, and it has been translated into many languages, including English, German, Italian, Spanish, Swedish, Hungarian and Polish.
For a time, there was a craze for people to learn photography, and photography became a fashion in European and American cities.