MKMOIK XV.] TAKING OF PORTRAITS BY PHOTOGRAPHY. 215 



MEMOIR XV. 



ON THE TAKING OF PORTRAITS FROM LIFE BY PHO- 

 TOGRAPHY. 



From the Philosophical Mngnzine, September, 1840. 



CONTENTS: History of the invention. First attempts by whitening the 

 face. Use of reflecting mirrors. Use of a blue-colored trough. Kind 

 of camera necessary. The seat or support. The background. Ap- 

 propriate dresses. Ladies' dresses. Arrangement of the shadow. 

 Reflecting camera. 



HISTORICAL NOTE. This Memoir contains the first 

 published description of the process for taking daguer- 

 reotype portraits. Of late, since the introduction of col- 

 lodion, this art has been much cultivated and improved. 

 It now forms an important branch of industrial occupa- 

 tion. That it was possible by photogenic processes, such 

 as the daguerreotype, to obtain likenesses from the life, 

 was first announced by the author of this volume in a 

 note to the editors of the Philosophical Magazine, dated 

 March 31, 1840, as may be seen in that journal for June, 

 1840, p. 535. The first portraits to which allusion is made 

 in the following Memoir were produced in 1839, almost 

 immediately after Daguerre's discovery was known in 

 America. 



In the Edinburgh Review for January, 1843, there is 

 an important article on Photography. In that the in- 

 vention of the art of taking photographic portraits is 

 attributed to its true source the author of this book. 

 It says : " He was the first, we believe, who, under the 

 brilliant summer sun of New York, took portraits by 

 the daguerreotype. This branch of photography seems 



