PLATE BOX IMAGE "J"



Plate "J"
[Fig. 16 credits]
 Plate J captured a man standing indoors in front of an open window partially filled with a rectangular blue stain of solarization. His eyes were open and clearly delineated though he squinted as if gazing into bright (but obviously somehow diffused) sunlight. A fulcrum of hand and elbow tightly braced the subject's chin. The image is reversed left to right.

Visual evidence in this powerful image appears to exactly match Draper's description of an alternate use of the same four-inch lens he used to photograph Frelinghuysen outdoors.[57] When used indoors in diffused light, even with a long exposure of five to seven minutes, such a lens provided only a narrow depth of field. The sharpness of this depth of field could be distorted further if the lens was uncorrected for chromatic aberration (in other words, a chromatic or non-achromatic lens).

Focusing enough intensity of light on the face to clearly delineate the eyes and yet not blind the sitter was a difficult problem. Few individuals in 1839 America could have surmounted such obstacles to accomplish this distinctive, eyes-open, indoor likeness of the human face. Just enough depth of field captured sharp detail from blurred nose tip to hazy ear.

Detail of Plate "J"
(reversal of the original daguerreotype is corrected).
[Fig. 16a credits]

In his own words, Dr. Draper described the method he used to accomplish such a true portrait. Notice that his description of potential defects of operation exactly corresponds with visual evidence within this image (the blue stain). Highlights and brackets are mine.
portraits can be obtained in five or seven minutes, in the diffused daylight [indoors]. . . . But in the reflected sunshine, the eye cannot support the effulgence of rays. It is therefore absolutely necessary to pass them through some blue medium, which shall abstract from them their heat, and take away their offensive brilliancy.


Plate "J", and enlarged details of what appears to be the
"blue stain corresponding to the figure of the glass".
[Fig. 17 credits] 		I have used for this purpose blue glass . . . to permit the eye to bear the light, and yet to intercept no more than was necessary. It is not requisite, when coloured glass is employed, to make use of a large surface; for if the camera operation be carried on until the proof almost solarizes, no traces can be seen in the portrait of its edges and boundaries; but if the process is stopped at an earlier interval, there will commonly be found a stain, corresponding to the figure of the glass. [In this daguerreotype a piece of "blue glass" may have been nailed up in the window opening with a triangular piece of wood at top and a rectangular piece of wood at bottom. What might be nail heads are even visible in the photo.][58]

Outdoors in direct sunlight uneven exposure flawed Draper's results (see plate I). If plate J was representative of Draper's indoor use of the four-inch lens, his work rivaled or exceeded the result of any other experimentation from the era. Draper was however unsatisfied, probably owing to the required five minute exposure and resulting tedium for the sitter. He was additionally dissatisfied in the fact that effective portraiture "requires [the lens] to be used in a piazza to have light enough."[59*] This statement provides an interesting perspective to later "gallery" operation.[60*]

Apparently to Draper's super-critical eye, all images in the plate box were flawed. He probably retained them, not as best products accomplished, but as examples of error. Draper's best portraits likely came out on his best plates. He would have reused such plates to save inconvenient delay and expense in the progress of experimentation.[61] Draper, Morse, and most other early daguerreian practitioners did not consider their very first experiments significant. Their documentation and memory concentrated upon achievement of the first fully successful and practical methods of portraiture perfected in spring 1840 gallery products.

Plate J is possibly a portrait of Professor Samuel Finley Breese Morse taken by Dr. John William Draper by the first week of October 1839. It compares favorably with Morse's face as evinced in later photographs.



On left, detail of Plate "J" c. 1839 (reversal of the original daguerreotype is corrected),
and on right, detail of a Brady photograph c. 1870.
[Fig. 18 credits]



On left, detail of Plate "J" c. 1839 (reversal of the original daguerreotype is corrected),
and on right, detail of a daguerreotype of the other side of Morse's face, c. 1845-55.
[Fig. 19 credits]

[To view other photos of Morse
and facial details that match the
individual recorded in Plate J,
follow this link.]

As discussed above, students returned to the university on 7 October and Draper likely halted all experimentation. He had not yet accomplished a portrait he considered successful or practical. To Draper "successful" meant all details of the face were clearly visible. This was the scientific problem Draper set out to solve--getting a proper exposure across the entire picture (no black eye holes) along with adequate sharpness and depth of field. "Practical" meant a portrait reasonably easy to accomplish without extended exposure time or tedium for the sitter. Draper created his criteria before the concept of commercial photographic portraiture existed. He approached the challenge as a scientific experiment in optics.


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