Why the world loved first photographs

A history of photographs has evolved to many stages, perfecting them with technology, photos are now processed quick and cheap. Back in the days it was a luxury to get your picture taken; it was a social status that usually middle class and up had the extra money to spend for fun, it is also because back then only a few people knew how to create portraits, from miniatures, silhouette, physionatrace, to daguerreotype, cyanotype, waxed cyanotype negative, salted paper print, wet collodion negative, albumen print, carbon print, photogravure. People always tried to find new innovations to capture the pictures more accurately and also time efficiency. An example is an advantage of a collodion type picture over a daguerreotype is that it can produce on paper prints could be multiplied as charged for the same cost. Once photographs are created, the world loves it because now you can have pictures of your loved ones, sceneries, whatever to keep as memory. These are just like the miniatures but now they are more accurate to what you see and can be in bigger sizes.

1.    What are the main differences and similarities between portraits in the early days of photography and portraits today?

Differences 

•  In the earlier days pictures are usually only taken on special occasions because it was pricey.
• Pictures are processed quicker now and cheap
• Cameras are cheap to buy with adjustable settings on how you like your pictures to look, high megapixels, easy to use, really clear accurate pictures.

Similarities 

• Still the same concept, both captures what you see, everyone still loves portraits. 

2. Who was the photographer and who was the subject of photographs in the past and today?

The photographer work of Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre is an inventor for photographic images.

3. What was the impact of technology on the portraits in the past and today?

In the past not everyone used technology, it was very new and hard to use and today since a lot of things are technology we are used to it and easily to learn and adapt to using technology.

The picture I posted is a Daguerrotype of Morse in Paris by an unknown photographer. Daguerrotype was the first photographic process that was shown by Daguerre publicly demonstrating, revealing and publishing detailing instructions.

This is created by Albert Bisbee which is also a Daguerrotype. These daguerrotypes are all unique.

Sources

Precursors of the photographic portrait by Gisele Freund

Photographic processes British library

Daguerreotype – How does it look and what kind of picture it takes

Daguerre and the invention of photography – MET museum