little, tiny faces of the people in the pictures could see out at them, so amazing did the unaccustomed detail and the unaccustomed truth to nature of the first daguerreotypes appear to everyone". One problem with early daguerreotypes was the length of exposure required, up to 15 minutes in bright sunlight. A daguerreotype depicting a chapel, states that the picture was taken between 4:40pm and 5:30pm on 19 April 1840. For portrait photographs rests were used to keep the head still, and one photographer put flour on subject's faces, to increase the amount of reflected light and reduce exposure time!In 1853 Daguerre's patent expired, and the number of daguerreotypists increased. But at that time, all photographs were monochrome, so many artists found work colouring photographs. Colouring kits were produced, the Newman kit, had thirty-six colours, which be applied painted onto the plate with a fine brush and fixed by then breathing on the plate.But the Daguerreotype process, was expensive, and the pictures were one-offs. It did mean that each image would be an original piece of art that couldn't be duplicated. The surfaces were extremely delicate and the images produced were mirror images. Also the bromine and chlorine fumes and hot mercury required were highly toxic and the images were difficult to view from certain angles. So there was a need for a way of copying pictures. The Calotype invented by William Henry Fox Talbot, provided the answer. He described it as "the process by which natural objects may be made to delineate themselves without the aid of the artist's pencil". Talbot made his first paper negative in August 1835. It depicts the now famous window at Lacock Abbey, his home. The negative is 1" square and poor quality, compared with the images produced by the Daguerreotype process. By 1841, Talbot had perfected the process and the great advantage of the Calotype was that an unlimited number of positive prints could ...
