DRAPER'S THIRD PORTRAIT LENS
Although it appears that Draper did not experiment after the October school session began, he must
have turned the inherent problems over in his mind. Probably after the end of classes on 21
December, Draper resumed experimentation with a solution to his problem.
In his December experiments Draper perfected the outdoor use of a one-inch lens: "The first
portrait I obtained last December was with a common spectacle glass, only an inch in diameter,
arranged at the end of a cigar box."[62] This lens had a focal length of
14 inches and was actually equivalent to the lens he used on his very first day of
experimentation (21 September) to make successful landscape daguerreotypes outside the chapel
window of the university. Of his December experiments Draper also wrote (words in parenthesis
crossed out in rough draft): "I found that a common spectacle lens would answer if the sitter was in
the open air and with such a one fastened into a cigar box I obtained many proofs but since it was
necessary with such an aperture to use (open sunshine) too much light all the proofs I had obtained
were defective about the eyes."[63]
Before the end of 1839 Draper accomplished portraits of the human face which met all his criteria.
At that time he considered them his "first" portraits, by which he meant practical portraits easily
produced.[64*] Ironically, though Draper considered these portraits to be
his first fully successful, he apparently suggested sitters keep their eyes closed owing to intense
sunlight. It was of little consequence to Draper that these portraits were "defective about the
eyes"; he had accomplished his scientific goal of even exposure. In December 1839 Dr. Draper
was not working toward the goal of a profit-oriented portrait "gallery". Such a concept existed
only in the future. Only by exercising historical hindsight might we judge his December portraits
aesthetically inferior to eyes-open portraits he accomplished months previous. As early as 1844,
the nuances of exactly what Dr. Draper meant by his "first" portraits, eluded or confused historians
of photography. Through the ensuing 150 years, misunderstanding compounded.[65]
No product of Draper's one-inch lens is included in the ninth-size plate box, probably because as
he explained, "a lens of this diameter answers very well for plates four inches by three".[66] Such a quarter-size plate could not fit inside the tiny wooden box.
Another extant early image however, intriguingly matches Draper's description of his one-inch
spectacle lens portraits. Speculative hypotheses concerning this image (labeled plate M)
are included at the end of appendix 1.
After these achievements Draper apparently dropped work on portraits and proceeded forward
with a wide range of other daguerreian experimentation. Before spring he made the world's first
photograph of the moon, took daguerreotypes by artificial light, perfected methods of enlarging and
copying daguerreotypes, took daguerreotypes through his microscope, and continued important
experiments in the effect of radiant energy upon daguerreian plates. Draper apparently did not
renew work on portraiture until Morse approached him after viewing Wolcott's commercialized
gallery product.