Bonneted Beauty I like the natural 'color' that these black and white images have. You can barely see the book that lies on the table next to her. This woman's head seems to poke out from inside a dress. Her hands are the only other skin that shows, yet there is still a sensuous aura about her. This woman is pretty. Even with the quaint head gear. Now that's a fashion statement! Buxom Beauty This girl looks like she had a figure. Most women of that era don't seem to. Maybe cause they didn't have Wonder Bra back then. I imagine her dress must have been bright red. She is holding a daguerrotype case in her hands. I think sometimes the subject would pick the case they wanted and pose with it. But the case she holds is different from the case that holds her picture. Maybe it was moved to a different case later, or maybe she holds a daguerreotype of someone else. Such mysteries are what make Dag collectiong so interesting.

TIMELINE FOR EARLY PHOTOGRAPHY 1519 Earliest drawing of a Camera Obscura made by Leonardo da Vinci. A Camera Obscura is a dark box or room with a small hole in one end which focuses an inverted image on the opposite wall. Used as an aid to drawing. 1600’s Robert Boyle, a founder of the Royal Society, reported that silver chloride turned dark under exposure, but he believed that it was caused by exposure to the air, rather than to light. Angelo Sala noticed that powdered nitrate of silver is blackened by the sun. 1727 Johan Heinrich Schulze discovered that certain liquids change colour when exposed to light. 1800’s Thomas Wedgewood successfully captured images, but his silhouettes could not survive, as there was no known method of making the image permanent. June/July 1827 The first successful photograph was produced in by Joseph-Nicephore Niépce using material that hardened on exposure to light. This picture required an exposure of eight hours. January 4, 1829 Niépce agreed to go into partnership with Louis Daguerre. Niépce died only four years later, but Daguerre continued to experiment. Soon he had discovered a way of developing photographic plates, a process which greatly reduced the exposure time from eight hours down to half an hour. He also discovered that an image could be made permanent by immersing it in salt. July 1839. Details of the process were made public and Daguerre named it the daguerreotype. August 19, 1839 The French government bought the rights to Daguerre's process.

Elegant Lady This woman is a true beauty, even by our standards today. She is obviously not from the wrong side of the tracks (that is a mink stole wrapped around her). I would like to have met her. You can't tell from a photograph what someone was like. She could have been snobbish. But something about her placid smile, (at a time when people didn't smile for the camera) and the benign look in her eyes, conveys to me that this woman had class. Aunt Cynthia The guy who sold this on Ebay said that Aunt Cynthia is written on the back of the plate. He said. "Whoever had this beautiful woman for an aunt was very lucky, not just because of her beauty but she also exudes kindness." Aunt is not exactly the relationship I have in mind when I look at her. I want to be the uncle! On closer inspection her face does look rugged. But that only adds to her stalwort handsomness.

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