Occasionally an interesting story on the mirror-like images will come in over the transom, and I'll usually read it and repost it on my Facebook page.
The stories are sometimes really intersesting, but more than anything they're often a mass-media piece about family photos found in the attic or or an exhibit at a local historical museum.
And frequently, they're not even daguerreotypes, but ambrotypes or tintypes.
But none the less, the stories are a fun read. As a lover of the early images I enjoy reading about other people, especially non collectors, enjoying the unique images.
The past few weeks, however, have been particularly interesting.
First came the Wired spread featuring Charles Fontayne and William Porter's multi-plate image of the Ohio River and Cincinnati (Which was not "Middle America" then, and isn't really even Middle American today). It is an amazing thing, and that's why it circulated so intensely online. It popped up in my e-mail box, all over Facebook and in emails to me from family that implied a "Hey! Have you seen this! I know you're into this stuff!!!!" message.
Not only did I think it was really cool, but apparently, other people did too. The Wired piece was an Internet hit, and a daguerreotype hit no less! I wonder if any mass media piece featuring daguerreotypes has been so widely read, ever! I'm probably just too young to remember, but I can't imagine many pieces gained such popularity. LOTS of people saw it, some likely hearing about daguerreotypes for the first time.
So,that was cool.
But then a funny thing happened. Someone used the zoom function build into Wired's image viewer and found some tiny figures on the river bank. As any daguerreotype collector can tell you, dags, when made correctly, have very high resolution. Most outdoor daguerreotype scenes, and even some portraits, are exciting to look at with a magnifying glass. It's often possible to spot some insanely tiny detail. So, yeah, someone found two figures by the riverbank. You can't see as much detail in silver gelatin photos, but it's still fun to zoom in and explore them as well.
That neat find got blogged about, but in a strange way. The blog, reblogs, news stories and discussions all asked the same question: "Is this the first photo of humans?"
Absolutely not!
Krulwich gets to that point quickly in his blog, thanks to this Hokumburg character, who notes that Daguerre's Paris view is credited as the first photo of a person. This subsequently made the news in a story that said "Its existence has been known for many years but it has sparked a frenzy of internet speculation recently after claims by University of Rochester academics that a photo taken in Cincinnati in 1848 was the oldest existing photo of a human being." God, some blogs are totally full of horse crap! It's funny what can happen with these blogs, it's like the telephone game. At no time did I come across any U of R academics claiming the '48 panorama was the first of humans.
The problem is that that blog got picked up all over the place, and that those news stories went with the "First ever photo of humans?" headline, which I hated, because the stories immediately said, "no, not really." But the first time I clicked, I thought, woah! How could it be! And that probably fueled some level of thinking that the Cinci photo was the first of humans.
Dags were very common by 1848. Lots of people had portraits made. But why would such a question even be asked, I thought. The answer is that very few people know very much at all about daguerreotypes, or the birth of photography. If they did, they would know that the Cincinnati view could not possibly be the first photograph that contains human images. (I still think someone with a half a brain would have figured out that an epic panorama of an urban scene was likely to be proceeded by some lowly portrait at some point)
Wait, was this photo at least the first of a weather vane? Probably not. So many outdoor daguerreotypes were taken by 1848 that surely a barn- or church steeple-mounted vane got into one before this.
So, the discourse on the "first humans" made me feel a bit disappointed. But I was also excited at the press daguerreotypes were receiving. If anyone didn't know a little bit about them a few weeks ago, they know more now because of that Wired posting and the strange debate that followed.
Things didn't end there though!
The well-known 1838 Boulevard du Temple by Daguerre, which cleared up the "earliest human" thing,
then became the fodder of the blogosphere. The smart folks who had enjoyed the zoom in the wired image remembered how fun that could be, and started taking apart the Paris image, too. Some even claimed to spy other humans in the image.
So there was a widespread basic education on daguerreotypes across the Internets these past few weeks. It was fun to watch, if a little frustrating at times.
There aren't all that many daguerreotype collectors out there these days. And there weren't 50 years ago really, either. The collecting and recognition of daguerreotypes as at attractive objects with many historical and artistic attributes really began in the 60s and 70s.
Forty-something years later the field of collectors is still small, and perhaps smaller than a decade or two ago. You'll have to ask someone who has been around longer than I have about that. But I can tell you this, just over 100 people attended the Daguerreian Society's annual symposium. So, it's a small but ardent group.
But I'm not giving up hope. Anyone who owns a camera today is a photographer. Photography is more prevalent today, with cell phone cams and other high-tech devices, than ever. I believe that is driving an interest in the photography of today and of the early days. Just look at how popular the Wired feature was. It was a hit.
And smart phone apps to make cell phone photos look old time-y are now widely available, and highly popular. So who knows, the early photo collecting craze could be growing right under our noses.
I did see this supposed first the other day. It's really neat.
And then there is this ad I pulled out of AutoWeek while waiting for an oil change a few days ago. Washington and a Dodge Challenger in a photo with a strong dagish/ambrotypish look. Historically accurate? No. Kinda of cool? Heck yeah! Here's to more early images popping up in popular culture.
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