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Abstract

In the first decades of the nineteenth century the invention of photography involved low-hanging fruit. There was existing demand in the growing middle classes for affordable ‘likenesses’ (i.e., portrait pictures), a practice well established in that stratum of society. The camera obscura, technology known for centuries, could render a more detailed image than any painting or carving and without apparent effort. Also, the light-sensitive nature of silver salts (silver nitrate and silver chloride) was widely known among contemporary practitioners. All that was needed was a way to permanently record the camera obscura’s image in order to produce likenesses for an existing market.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Freund 1982, p. 9.

  2. 2.

    Johnson et al. 2005; Rosenblum 2007, p. 39; Freund 1982.

  3. 3.

    Batchen 1997; Rosenblum 2007, p. 193.

  4. 4.

    Batchen 1997.

  5. 5.

    Harmant 1977.

  6. 6.

    Batchen 1997.

  7. 7.

    Benson 2008, p. 100.

  8. 8.

    Rosenblum 2007.

  9. 9.

    Ibid., p. 17. However, Rosenblum (2007, p. 18) points out that Daguerre’s process was not royalty-free on the other side of the English Channel. Daguerre patented his invention in England, and British subjects had to purchase a franchise from Daguerre’s agent.

  10. 10.

    Ibid., p. 21.

  11. 11.

    Auer 1975, p. 35.

  12. 12.

    Rosenblum 2007, p. 642. For lack of a better estimate, 2 litres of red wine cost, in August 1839, 0.36 francs in France; therefore, Daguerre’s annuity would have purchased him around 33,000 litres of wine (data from Michaud 2010).

  13. 13.

    Jenkins 1975, p. 31.

  14. 14.

    Rosenblum 2007; Wade 1979.

  15. 15.

    Jenkins 1975, p. 30.

  16. 16.

    Benson 2008, p. 106.

  17. 17.

    Auer 1975, p. 27; Jenkins 1975, p. 39.

  18. 18.

    Auer 1975, p. 26.

  19. 19.

    Benson 2008, p. 108.

  20. 20.

    Ibid., p. 108. However, the daguerreotype remained popular in the United States for longer than in Europe (Rosenblum 2007, p. 23).

  21. 21.

    An underexposed negative image appears as a positive against a black background (Benson 2008, p. 118).

  22. 22.

    Allison 1989, p. 48.

  23. 23.

    Ibid., Benson 2008, p. 118.

  24. 24.

    Allison 1989, p. 48.

  25. 25.

    Rosenblum 2007, p. 40.

  26. 26.

    Ibid., p. 41.

  27. 27.

    Ibid., pp. 41–42.

  28. 28.

    Auer 1975, p. 47.

  29. 29.

    Czech 1996, p. 13.

  30. 30.

    Holland 2009, p. 127.

  31. 31.

    Jenkins 1975, p. 2.

  32. 32.

    Rosenblum 2007, p. 96.

  33. 33.

    Ibid., p. 97.

  34. 34.

    Ibid., p. 96.

  35. 35.

    Ibid., p. 98.

  36. 36.

    Ibid., p. 105.

  37. 37.

    Jenkins 1975, p. 50.

  38. 38.

    Allison 1989, p. 58.

  39. 39.

    Ibid., p. 58.

  40. 40.

    Czech 1996, p. 37.

  41. 41.

    Jenkins 1975, p. 60.

  42. 42.

    Rosenblum 2007, p. 107.

  43. 43.

    A view of Mammoth Hot Springs, in the US’s Yellowstone National Park, captured by F.J. Haynes. Czech 1996, p. 37.

  44. 44.

    Allison 1989; Holland 2009.

  45. 45.

    Rosenblum 2007, pp. 109–110.

  46. 46.

    Johnson et al. 2005, p. 165.

  47. 47.

    Ibid., p. 173.

  48. 48.

    Allison 1989, p. 53.

  49. 49.

    Ibid., p. 54.

  50. 50.

    Rosenblum 2007, p. 196.

  51. 51.

    Allison 1989; Wichard and Wichard 1999, p. 5.

  52. 52.

    Batchen 2009, p. 81.

  53. 53.

    Ibid., p. 81.

  54. 54.

    Allison 1989; Jenkins 1975, p. 20; Johnson et al. 2005, p. 82.

  55. 55.

    Goldberg 1991, p. 104.

  56. 56.

    Batchen 2009, p. 81.

  57. 57.

    Allison 1989, p. 55.

  58. 58.

    Batchen 2009, p. 88.

  59. 59.

    Ibid., p. 88.

  60. 60.

    Ibid.

  61. 61.

    Ibid.

  62. 62.

    Allison 1989, p. 46.

  63. 63.

    Auer 1975, p. 46.

  64. 64.

    Wichard and Wichard 1999, p. 74.

  65. 65.

    Ibid., p. 74.

  66. 66.

    Ibid., p. 76.

  67. 67.

    Ibid., p. 74.

  68. 68.

    Ibid., p. 75.

  69. 69.

    Ibid., pp. 74–75.

  70. 70.

    Ibid., p. 75.

  71. 71.

    Ibid., p. 75.

  72. 72.

    Ibid., p. 76.

  73. 73.

    Allison 1989; Wichard and Wichard 1999, p. 79.

  74. 74.

    Holland 2009, p. 128.

  75. 75.

    Chambers 2003; Wichard and Wichard 1999, p. 78.

  76. 76.

    Chambers 2003, p. 99.

  77. 77.

    Johnson et al. 2005, p. 328; Batchen 2009, p. 83.

  78. 78.

    Allison 1989; Goldberg 1991, pp. 104, 128.

  79. 79.

    Goldberg 1991, p. 104.

  80. 80.

    Allison 1989; Goldberg 1991, p. 104.

  81. 81.

    Goldberg 1991, p. 105.

  82. 82.

    Ibid., p. 105.

  83. 83.

    Ibid., p. 104.

  84. 84.

    Ibid., pp. 107–108.

  85. 85.

    Ibid., p. 108.

  86. 86.

    Ibid., p. 112.

  87. 87.

    Czech 1996; Goldberg 1991, p. 112.

  88. 88.

    Goldberg 1991, p. 108.

  89. 89.

    Wichard and Wichard 1999, pp. 79–80.

  90. 90.

    Chambers 2003; Wichard and Wichard 1999.

  91. 91.

    Goldberg 1991, p. 105.

  92. 92.

    Holland 2009, p. 125.

  93. 93.

    Batchen 2009, p. 81.

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Sarvas, R., Frohlich, D.M. (2011). The Portrait Path (ca. 1830s–1890s). In: From Snapshots to Social Media - The Changing Picture of Domestic Photography. Computer Supported Cooperative Work. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-85729-247-6_3

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