Show & Tell Friday~

For this weeks show & tell I'm sharing some old Daguerretype photo's that I picked up from a second hand store. There was a bag of 5 for $20. I had always wanted some of these.... no reason in particular...lol...just wanted some. They are housed in little cases/boxes that are super cute all by themselves, then they open up to showcase an old photo inside a golden mat. There is velvet opposite the glass photo I imagine to help protect the glass from breaking. I had to use my scanner to get a close up of these. These are daguerretypes which means they reflect like a mirror so they are tricky to photograph....okokok, and I was lazy.They are not in "pristine" condition, all of them no longer are hinged together.... I like to believe that the people in those photos were so deeply loved that the boxes were opened so often that the little hinges broke that way :-)

Here is something I copied/pasted from the web about this type of photograpy if anyone is interested in reading it ~

Daguerreotype The dawn of popular photography arrived in 1839 with the daguerreotype image. Though an earlier process, the calotype, had been invented in 1835, it was the "dag," invented by Louis Daguerre in 1839, that excited the public and brought our ancestors to the new studios that opened primarily in the larger cities. The daguerreotype photographer was a true artist, and needed significant skills to create the one, non-reproduceable image. The daguerreotype produced a direct positive image by coating a copper plate with silver, polishing it, then exposing it to iodine vapors to make it light sensitive. The plate was placed went into the camera, was exposed, then heated over mercury. The result was a very sharp & detailed image. Wrinkles, lines, muscles, wounds are all keenly delineated. You will often get the feeling that the subject in a dag will step out of the image and come to life! Dags were delicate and easy to damage. Thus, the daguerreotype was the most expensive type of image to buy then as it is now. The daguerreotype is a startlingly realistic form of early photography. You can recognize a daguerreotype by the mirrored appearance to its surface.

This show & tell is hosted by Kelli