Daguerreotype

To understand how I came about we have to start at the beginning of photography. The first type was called daguerreotype, it was created by Louis Daguerre and  oseph Nicéphore Niépce. Niepce created the first photographic image in the camera called obscura using asphaltum on a copper plate sensitised with lavender oil, which required a very long exposures.

The Daguerreotype image is formed by the amalgam, or alloy, of mercury and silver. a pool of heated mercury is used to develop the plate that consists of a copper plate with a thin coating of silver rolled in a contact that has previously been sensitised to light with iodine vapour. so as to form silver iodide crystals on the silver surface of the plate.

An image is formed on the surface of a silver plate that looks like a mirror. Was formed the image can easily be rubbed off with a finger and will also oxidize in the air, so to protect the  daguerreotypes they were mounted in a sealed cases or a frame with a glass covering. When you view a daguereotypes a dark surface is used to reflect into the mirrored silver surface. Daguereotypes are very unique by redaguerreotyping the original. so I know that sounds really complicated so below is the like to a video that goes through how it works.

Video on the Daguerreotype

Sources

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daguerreotype