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.
Daguerreotype
It is possible that Morse may have been the first American to view a daguerreotype first-hand. Morse's experience with art and technology in the early 1800s attracted him to the daguerreotype; in the summers of 1820 and 1821 he conducted proto-photographic experiments with Benjamin Silliman. In his piece The Gallery of the Louvre Morse used a Camera obscura to precisely capture the gallery which he then used to create the final painting.