Daguerreotype of Christina Payne Hallock, circa 1855, DAG.04; Photography collection; Brooklyn Historical Society

Daguerreotype are photographs engraved in coppered plates. It was one of the first successful photographic process. At the time it was invented (19th century) they mainly consisted of a portrait shot put into a very decorative frame. Like the example above from the Brooklyn Historical library you can see how much detail was put into what surrounded the photograph. It was all handmade and not only was it framed but it also had a cover made of a fancy patterned cloth material.

Daguerreotype photography is very different from todays ways. In todays world less focused is put on the decorative surrounding the photograph, and more attention is put on the actual meaning the photograph is trying to convey. We have moved far beyond only photographing portraits. Like the example i give below of flowers i shot during class you can see how i put a lot of enphaces on the light hitting the flower and how the flowers were placed. Those are things that people working on daguerreotypes probably wouldn’t pay much attention to. I could imagine them spending more time planning out the cover and frame than actually taking the photograph. In addition to that because of todays technology we are more flexible when taking photographs and because of how fast-paced our world is we try to convey as much powerful of a meaning as we can in every picture and care less about the extra stuff like actually framing it.