The George Eastman House released a 12-part video series last month that examines the history of photography from the perspective of its technology. Photographic Processes Series, available on YouTube, starts with the silhouette and traces photography’s development through daguerreotypes, cyanotypes, Kodachrome, and right up to digital. Scroll down for two daguerreotpye photographs of unidentified persons from the archives of the Antigonish Heritage Museum. They would have been taken with a camera much like the one in the Eastman photo below. Can you speculate about either one of these photos — family, occupation etc.? What was the process of adding colour to a daguerreotype, namely, rosy cheeks in both of these Antigonish photos.
Woman with a camera, albumen print cabinet card, by A. J. Davison (188) (via George Eastman House)
Anonymous. Photograph Courtesy of Antigonish Heritage Museum
Anonymous. Photograph Courtesy of Antigonish Heritage Museum
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d932Q6jYRg8&list=PL4F918844C147182A&index=2
This is the Eastman YouTube on Daguerreotypes. I have a daguerreotype of my great great grandmother Elizabeth Fitzgerald (from Belfast, Ireland) and it is in perfect condition, as is the case of all daguerreotypes as I learned from this video. A much better process of preservation than any photography process since.
http://hyperallergic.com/184618/the-tale-of-jean-gabriel-eynard-gentleman-daguerreotypist/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Photographer+Develops+31+Lost+Film+Rolls+Taken+by+World+War+II+Soldier&utm_content=Photographer+Develops+31+Lost+Film+Rolls+Taken+by+World+War+II+Soldier+CID_4813bb77ac4edf306a51205bd28715c4&utm_source=HyperallergicNewsletter&utm_term=The%20Tale%20of%20Jean-Gabriel%20Eynard%20Gentleman%20Daguerreotypist
When the daguerreotype was introduced in 1839, some of the first to support this groundbreaking photographic process were the elite of Europe. Jean-Gabriel Eynard, a Swiss banker, experimented with the method in the early 1840s right up to his death in 1863. See his 1845 daguerreotype Study of a White Foal.