Terms & Technologies

These appendices explain the various processes and techniques involved in early photographic process.

Daguerreotype: Here's Looking at Me

Louis-Jacques-Mandé Daguerre circulated a notice in 1838 to attract investors in his recent invention of the daguerreotype. He described his eponymous invention as follows: "The daguerreotype is not merely an instrument which serves to draw nature . . . [it] gives her the power to reproduce herself."¹ A year later Francois Arago, the head of the Academie des Sciences in Paris, publicly disclosed Daguerre's photographic process... >>

Ambrotype: A Negative Positive

By the summer of 1855 the ambrotype was fast becoming the most popular form of photography among Americans, preferred even over the daguerreotype. The popularity of the medium was owed to the absence of the highly reflective surface that characterized the daguerreotype, which many persons found troublesome. An ambrotype is most simply described as a collodion glass-plate negative that appears to be a positive when viewed against a dark surface... >>

Tintype: There is No Tin in a Tintype

A wet-plate collodion process produced on a thin iron plate--named the melainotype (melaino, meaning dark or black) or ferrotype (ferro, referring to iron) and popularly called the tintype--was developed in Ohio in the early 1850s. While many mid-nineteenth century photographers did not value the tintype, it held many advantages over earlier photographic processes. It was less expensive, easier and faster to produce than the silver-plated daguerreotype, and much more durable than the glass-plated ambrotype... >>

A Case for Early Photography

Except for paper-based images, most early photographs were customarily enclosed in miniature cases. Frequently containing portraits, cases protected daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, and even tintypes from light, moisture, pollution, and abrasion; they also allowed the photographs to be easily and safely carried about... >>

virtual gallery >>