Moses Billings
With the development of the daguerreotype in the 1840s, the role of the portrait painter declined in general, because it was now much easier and much cheaper to have one's likeness presented in a visual format. While many portrait painters lost business in competition with the daguerreotype, Billings instead began to produce daguerreotype prints himself. It is not known exactly which prints were made by Moses Billings, as daguerreotypes were usually signed, when signed at all, along the side of the plate. Due to the traditional storing methods of daguerreotype plates, even this signature usually quickly became illegible. However, it has been generally noted, or at least hypothesized, that his daguerreotype prints showed a level of talent and artistry above that of amateur daguerreotypists. Though it is not known exactly which prints were his, it is known that he had largely abandoned the process by the 1850s. Even after he stopped making daguerreotypes, he did continue to paint people's portraits on canvas.
Daniel DeWitt Tompkins Davie
Davie had wanted to be a painter but gave up the idea for financial reasons. Instead he learned the daguerreotype technique sometime after 1843, and in 1846, he opened his first photography studio, located in Utica, New York. Although Davie was almost entirely self-taught, his professional reputation developed rapidly, and in 1850 he traveled to Washington, DC, where he photographed nearly every member of both houses of Congress along with other public figures. His 1850 daguerreotype of Daniel Webster was considered in its day "one of the most striking likenesses" of that statesman.