The summer obsession that leads from the first daguerreotype to today's 'selfie'

Before photography became confined to cell phones and became a disposable mass-consumption product. Before people became obsessed with recording their every move. Even before we traveled, ate, or went to concerts just to capture the event and show it to others, taking a photograph was so epic it seemed like something out of a fantasy novel. A lot has happened since then, but one thing remains the same: photography has always been better in the summer.

Louise Daguerre was the father of the daguerreotype, the first photographic camera that managed to record images and preserve them for posterity. Although she had already conducted various experiments between 1836 and 1838, demonstrating its viability, it wasn't until 1939 that the invention is considered to have truly begun, especially when the French government purchased the patent in July, allowing everyone to use their own daguerreotype. Thus, photography was born. That same August, the Catalan engraver Ramon Alabern , then living in Paris, used it to immortalize the Place de la Madeleine. Was he the first tourist to take photographs on his summer trip?

Alabern learned to use the camera from Daguerre himself and became his star pupil. The truth is that the shock of those first images was absolute. "Mr. Daguerre has discovered the means of fixing images that are painted in the depths of a camera obscura!" announced the astonished 'Semanario Pintoresco Español' in January 1839. The brilliant writer Edgar Allan Poe, for his part, did not hesitate to affirm that: "The daguerreotype must undoubtedly be considered the most important and perhaps the most extraordinary triumph of modern science." Baudelaire, on the other hand, spoke of the "mortal enemy of art." And now this modern marvel is used primarily for taking selfies. Perhaps Baudelaire was right.

After his success in Paris, Alabern brought the invention to Barcelona. After months of preparation, the Royal Academy of Sciences and Arts organized the event as if it were a Champions League final. The Catalan engraver brought his Daguerre-Giroux camera and set out to photograph the Lonja and Casa Xifré , near the Barcelona port. At that time, light exposure was so long that only buildings could be photographed. At 11:30 a.m., everything was ready for history to be made, although the photograph wasn't taken until 1:00 p.m. After the final shot, they had to wait up to 22 minutes to be able to release the plate with the image.

The newspaper 'El Constitucional' had asked residents days beforehand not to be present within the frame of the daguerreotype so as not to spoil it. "If time permits, a view of the Lonja and the block of the Xifré house will be taken... residents of these buildings are warned to leave their balconies and windows during the few minutes of the exhibition... if any spectator ignores this request, their insubordination will be indelibly marked on the plate," it read. This is what is known today as 'photobombing'.

The historian José Coroleu , then a child, recorded the testimony of witnesses from that day, stating that the daguerreotype failed on its first attempt and had to be repeated. "Although the weather was cloudy and windy... the camera obscura was placed under the light with the plate ready. They took it out of the camera after twenty minutes... the beautiful view appeared clean, bright, and engraved on it," wrote Coroleu.

The truth is that Barcelona went all out for the event, even a municipal band livened up the wait with a concert. Rifle shots from local law enforcement signaled the start and end of the daguerreotype exhibition. Leaflets were distributed throughout the city announcing the event, and a raffle was held among attendees, including 103 tickets, of which the winning number was 56. The prize was the plate, and after the contest, it disappeared. Whoever won either lost it or kept it hidden without anyone else knowing of its existence. The price per ticket was six reales de vellón at the time, something not everyone could afford.

Eight days later, the daguerreotype arrived in Madrid thanks to the Catalan engravers Graells, Pou, and Camps. This time, the image was of the Royal Palace, taken from the right bank of the Manzanares River. If 22 minutes of waiting seemed like an eternity in Barcelona, ​​in Madrid they had to wait up to an hour before the image was finally recorded due to bad weather. The resulting plate was preserved, having been deposited at the Faculty of Pharmacy at the Complutense University of Madrid . However, in 1978 it was lost due to flooding, as if a shadowy hand were following the origins of our photography.

Thus was born our modern obsession with taking photographs and showing them to the world. Alabern began teaching the upper classes how to use the new device . In 1840, the daguerreotype was improved by reducing the light exposure time required to record images, making it possible to dedicate it to portraiture. Spain was thus filled with the first professional photographers. "The daguerreotypist's commercial strategy was that of any luxury merchant, advertising in the press and highlighting his foreignness (or inventing it)," commented art historian María de los Santos García Felguera.