24 Aug In ‘The Daguerreotype’s Popularity in America,’ Donald Keyes

In ‘The Daguerreotype’s Popularity in America,’ Donald Keyes discusses the development of early photography in the United States, drawing attention to its technical limitations (compared to modern photography) and photography’s social influence. In ‘Why We Say `Cheese,” Christina Kotchemidova examines the development of smiling in photographs. Though smiling is taken for granted now, Kotchemidova shows how this particular pose is a social construction — in other words, a norm that was learned rather than natural or obvious to early photographic subjects. In this response, please address the following questions: (minimum 250 words)According to Keyes, early daguerreotypes had several technical limitations (compared to modern photography). What were these limitations? How did they affect the kinds of photos that could be taken? Keyes discusses a famous photograph of Abraham Lincoln that became popular shortly after his assassination. Why is this particular photograph significant? What does it suggest about photographic ‘realism’? According to Kotchemidova, having one’s picture taken was not considered a ‘happy experience’ for many Americans around 1900. Why not? What did Kodak do to overcome this resistance?