Daguerre, Louis

Daguerre, Louis (b Cormeilles-en-Parisis, 18 Nov. 1787; d Bry-sur-Marne, 10 July 1851).
French artist and inventor. He invented the diorama (1822) and the daguerreotype, the first practicable photographic process, in which the image was produced on a silvered copper plate sensitized by iodine. Each image was unique, as it was made directly onto the plate without an intervening ‘negative’. Daguerre made the process public in 1839, only a few weeks before the English scientist William Henry Fox Talbot (1800–77) announced the invention of the calotype, which could produce multiple prints from a single negative. This ultimately represented the way ahead, but the daguerreotype produced a more detailed and attractive image and dominated the first twenty years of photography.