Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre

Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre’s life spanned from November 1787 to July 1851. When he was young he had jobs as an apprentice architect, an assistant stage designer in a Paris theatre, supplying the scenic and lighting effects for several opera , and he developed an illusions theatre that he called Diorama; which was a picture show with changing light effects and huge paintings of famous places. His Dioramas were big hits in the 1920’s. He used a camera obscura to help him paint in perspective which brought him to his interest in freezing the image. In January of 1829 he joined a partnership with Nicephore Niépce. After the death of Nicephore Niépce four years later, Louis made an accidental discovery. “He put an exposed plate in his chemical cupboard, and some days later, to his surprise, that the latent image had developed. Daguerre eventually concluded that this was do to the presence of mercury vapour from a broken thermometer” (http://www.rleggat.com/photohistory/history/daguerr.htm). The discovery of a developed latent image made it possible to reduce the exposure time from about eight hours to thirty minutes. He was later able to fix the images in 1837 through a process called Daguerreotype.
"A History of Photography, by Robert Leggat: DAGUERRE, Louis Jacques Mande." Some of the sites managed by Robert Leggat. Web. 07 Dec. 2009. .