The History of the Photographic Self-Portrait Part 2

Robert Cornelius Self-Portrait 1839

The birth of photography was a messy affair as it was not just one inventor or scientist involved, or one institution but a range of people that were working independently of each other.  Unsurprisingly this has led to some confusion for the first early steps for photography as a range of different techniques emerged, with claims and counter claims of who was the first person to discover this new invention.  But the starting point that is needed for this series is August 19th 1839, the date of when the Daguerreotype was presented to the world[1] and “tradition still casts Daguerre as the originator of photography” (Marien, 2014, p3).  This process could capture the likeness of the material world, but could only produce one unique copy, something quite different to the photographs we are used to today, and it was Fox Talbot that first created a technique that could infinitely copy an image. 

However, why this date is interesting is because of what is the first self-portrait to be created by using a camera.  The first self-portrait was also taken in 1839, possibly in October or November, soon after the announcement in Paris and it was taken in America, on the other side of the world.  The reason for this is because when Daguerre revealed photography to the world, he was required to publish the scientific process and the techniques that were used.  There was no mention of composition or artistic techniques, just the science behind the invention.   But from this initial history of photography, it demonstrates the process was regarded more as a scientific endeavour rather than an artistic development.  Nearly all of the people mentioned above are chemists and inventors, none of them are artists, with the exception of Daguerre, even though Fox Talbot claimed to have developed his process due to a frustration of a lack of artistic skill. 

However, once the process had been developed and published, it then became possible for people to experiment and one of the first photographs taken was a daguerreotype of a self-portrait.  But even this self-portrait , located at the beginning of the blog post, was more of a trial rather than a serious attempt of capturing the photographer’s likeness and character.   It was a test to see how the new technology worked and if it was possible to take a portrait rather than a landscape or a still life composition.[2] 

But because of the mechanical nature of photography there was always a reliance on machinery to produce the photograph.  Then there was the understanding of how light reacted with photo sensitive chemicals and how the chemical reaction worked to produce something that resembles the natural world.  It is this technical side of photography, the processes of developing and printing combined with the mechanisation of the camera that made the original photographers more like technicians in a chemistry lab combined with being a mechanic. 

It was this mechanical and scientific nature of photography that owed its creation to the age of enlightenment and the advances in the sciences and methods of mass production. Because of the advances in science and engineering which made it possible to discover the processes of photography.  It was the research of Neipce that made the Daguerreotype possible, but the fact that other people were also developing their own techniques, such as Fox Talbot and even Hercules Florence in Brazil, demonstrates the general direction of scientific research and development.  By not having one single inventor or institution but a group of independent people working in different parts of the world suggests photography owes more to the age of enlightenment rather than a single person. 

It is these skills the photographer used to produce the first images.  In the earliest known photographic self-portrait, see above, shows Robert Cornelius in 1839 and it is as much about the skill of being a technician and a mechanic as it is about his identity.  Cornelius had recently received the booklet Daguerre published on his technique and was testing the equipment to ascertain that it worked properly and could record an image.  Cornelius set up the camera in a place that had strong sunlight, which was on the roof of the family printing business, removed the lens cap and stood in front of the camera, probably for a few seconds.  It’s feasible that he tried this approach various times as it is unlikely that he got the correct exposure on the first attempt, but none of the other self portraits exist.  However, there was no intention of creativity or to produce an image that goes beyond being a test for the equipment.  But the skill that was used was based upon mechanical and chemical understanding rather than artistic creativity and so placed photography within the realm of the enlightenment and being at odds with expressions of creativity and artistry.

So, even though the invention of photography could be accredited to one person, Daguerre, the claim can be contested and is considered to be somewhat tenuous.  Neipce was the person who created the invention but it was Daguerre who presented it to the world.  Then there was Fox Talbot who had created a different process in 1836, but did not publish his method until 1841, or even Hippolyte Bayard, who created another different process, but was outmanoeuvred by Daguerre when Daguerre managed to present the Daguerreotype first.  But the early days of photography would be dominated by the developing technology rather than expressive self-portraits. 

[1] August 19th 1839 Daguerre revealed the invention that bore his name to a joint session of the Académie des Sciences and the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris.

[2] During the development of photography vast majority of photographs were of landscapes due to the long exposures, for instance the first photograph ever taken was an 8 hour exposure titled The View From the Window of Le Gras taken by Joseph Niepce in 1826.