Daguerreotype
Morse met the inventor of the daguerreotype, Louis-Jacques-Mande Daguerre, in Paris in January 1839 when Daguerre's invention was announced [2]. While the daguerreotype fascinated Morse, he was concerned about how the new invention would compete with his telegraph. However, Morse's viewing of the daguerreotype alleviated his fears when he saw how revolutionary its technology was. Morse wrote a letter to his brother Sidney describing Daguerre's invention, which Sidney then published in the New-York Observer on April 20, 1839. While this was not the first report of the daguerreotype to appear in America, it was the first in-person report to appear in the United States.
Pierre-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière
In 1839, Joly was in Paris at the time when Louis Daguerre unveiled his early photographic process to the scientific world. Embarking on a trip to the Middle East, Pierre-Gustave acquired one of the first daguerreotype cameras from Noël Paymal Lerebours in order to make photographic records of the ancient monuments he was about to see on his journey. He travelled via Malta to Greece, where he visited Athens and other places, and then carried on to Alexandria. There, he met the painter Horace Vernet and his nephew, Frédéric Goupil-Fesquet, who were also carrying daguerreotype equipment. The three men undertook some excursions in Egypt together before parting company. Joli then travelled to the Holy Land, Syria and Turkey. Back in Paris, five of his 92 plates were published by Lerebours in his book "Excursions daguerriennes" (1840–41), others by architect Hector Horeau for his book "Panorama from Egypt and Nubia" (1841). Due to technological restrictions, the daguerretypes themselves could not be reproduced and, instead, were copied as engravings which could then be printed. None of Joly's original plates has been identified, and they may well be lost. What they contained is known through his diary which has been published in 2011.