Re: Kissed by the loving lips of death*

Alas! poor Bayard...

Not only was he not recognized as being a founder of photography.
He was tricked into delaying his exhibition of prints so that Arago
could announce the discovery of the Daguerreotype ahead of him!

That image always reminds me that veracity has always been
suspect when the camera is involved.

cheers,

phillip

Jack Fulton wrote:

> I mean this more as supposition for my memory could be hazy . . . but
> I believe I have read somewhere that actually Nicephore did have some
> ideas about light sensitive materials and that Jacques Louis gathered all
> pertinent data and worked vigorously employing the thought of Mr. Niepce.
>
> Also, don't forget the accomplishment of our dear Hippolyte Bayard who came
> across this independently, producing a paper negative print. When told that
> Jacques Louis had a process where one could see a positive he immediately
> went back to his studio and came up with a reversal print. His infamous
> portrait d'individu after David's "Death of Marat" was a brilliant metaphor for his
> sadness of not being recognized by the French Assembly as were Msrs.Dagueere
> et Niepce.
>
> Jack F.
> * Baudelaire
>
> On Aug 25, 2004, at 1:45 PM, Ryuji Suzuki wrote:
>
> From: Phillip Murphy <pmurf@bellsouth.net>
> Subject: Re: Daguerreotypes again-mercury
> Date: Wed, 25 Aug 2004 06:41:35 -0500
>
> The discovery of the Daguerreotype process
> was made with considered and methodical experimentation.
> A major contributor to this discovery was his partner
> Niepce who's goal was to create a new form of lithography.
> Unfortunately, Niepce died unexpectedly and the research
> which they had shared became the groundwork for the experiments
> that led to the discovery of the Daguerreotype.
>
> That's not likely. Niepce disclosed his knowledge (bitumen based) to
> Daguerre when Daguerre visited Chalon at the end of 1820's. Daguerre
> did not seem to have significant achievement at that time. After that,
> Niepce did not contribute much to the pool of knowledge between the
> two. Daguerre wrote Niepce about silver iodide, but Niepce did not
> seem to be interested. Niepce and Daguerre probably did not get what
> they expected from their contract. So, practically speaking, Daguerre
> was on his own since then. Is seems that no one saw Daguerre working
> on his project and there is no hard evidence I could find about how he
> discovered development. The cupboard story is the only plausible
> explanation given in the literature I found so far.
>
> I could not find any record of methods of his experimentation that
> lead to discovery of his development (other than stepwise removal of
> chemicals from the cupboard). As you see in their modified contract,
> Daguerre cared more about him getting the credit than money. A man
> with that kind of spirit would disclose details of methods at some
> point if it were discovered as a result of methodical experimentation
> as you proposed.
>
> --
> Ryuji Suzuki
> "You have to realize that junk is not the problem in and of itself.
> Junk is the symptom, not the problem."
> (Bob Dylan 1971; source: No Direction Home by Robert Shelton)
Received on Wed Aug 25 23:04:21 2004