Daguerre’s invention did not spring to life fully grown,
although in 1839 it may have seemed that way. In fact, Daguerre
had been searching since the mid-1820s for a means to capture
the fleeting images he saw in his camera obscura, a draftsman’s
aid consisting of a wood box with a lens at one end that threw
an image onto a frosted sheet of glass at the other. In 1829, he
had formed a partnership with Nicéphore Niépce, who had been
working on the same problem—how to make a permanent image using
light and chemistry—and who had achieved primitive but real
results as early as 1826. By the time Niépce died in 1833, the
partners had yet to come up with a practical, reliable process.
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