Brooklyn Historical Society

Learning about the format of daguerreotype has greatly changed my idea of photography. The format changes my personal experience of both taking and viewing photographs. When I want to take a picture, I would simply take out my camera or phone and snapshot the image/ scenery. Most importantly I add “filters” to make my image more intriguing. The daguerrotypes that I handled today were drastically different, most notable were the postures of the individuals. They were very still because, they could not move or the image would be ruined. Secondly the images were very small, and considered pocket size. The frame surrounding them were black and had no other objects in the frame. Digital images that I take are more liberated in a sense, I can take a picture of a moving object and still capture something valuable, images can be resized (larger or smaller). My images can also have many things in the background. Lastly the process of how daguerreotypes were taken and how I presently take pictures is a lot more advanced. The process required using chemicals to capture an image, if it was not done accurately the image would not appear on the metal plate correctly.