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.
Photography in Denmark
Christian Tuxen Falbe, a Danish marine officer, was in Paris in January 1839 on behalf of Crown Prince Frederik when Louis Daguerre revealed the art of daguerreotyping. Falbe informed the Crown Prince of a visit to Daguerre where he had seen some of the very earliest daguerreotypes, explaining how impressed he had been by the new process and how important he thought it would be for art and science in Denmark. Shortly afterwards, he returned to Copenhagen with a camera and a couple of his own daguerreotypes for the Crown Prince who, believing them to be of scientific importance, deposited them with Hans Christian Ørsted, one of Denmark's most prominent scientists. As a result of Ørsted's own interest in photography, the new art took on rapidly: the daguerreotypist Mads Alstrup (1809–76) opened Copenhagen's first photographic studio in 1842; and by 1850 there were over a hundred studios in Copenhagen and many more in the provinces.