Day 2 TAHPS

Daguerreotype photographs were some of the first photos taken. There were traveling photographers who went from town to town peddling their trade. They were able to take their equipment and do location shots or set up a temporary studio and do indoor shots. The photographs would be rather expensive and so everyone couldn’t afford to have one done. Also, if you had a death then it was common place to summon the photographer to take photos of the dead. This was especially true with children. This was done because this was probably the only visual record of the life of the child. The problem with the daguerreotype photos was that there could be absolutely no movement because there was a twenty second development time, if you moved then you would blur the photo. Some of the photos taken were of families, pets, and slaves.

The Neilson-Atkins museum was neat. The only problem was that our “experts” were reading directly from the placard that was on the wall next to the photographs. We could have done that ourselves. It was great to be able to go and do a private showing of the daguerreotype photographs. It was hard to create a reproduction by taking a photograph of it because it was created on a mirror.