NARRATOR: 

These photographs may appear a little out of place in a museum of modern and contemporary art, but according to curator Erin O’Toole, these 19th-century daguerreotypes and cased works are an essential part of the collection. 

ERIN O’TOOLE: 

SFMOMA is one of the few modern museums that collects early photographs like daguerreotypes or tintypes or other kinds of what we call “vernacular photography,” photos that were made for sort of everyday purposes, like portraits or commercial work or topographical photographs. 

In fact, most early photographs weren’t made as art. But the way that they were made and the style in which they were made informs what later photographers did.  

NARRATOR: 

Modern photography is often thought of as a medium of multiples; with a negative, a photographer can make endless numbers of prints. But the earliest photographs were one-of-a-kind.  

O’TOOLE: 

It’s a personal, tactile kind of experience, which is unlike how you usually experience photographs. The case is generally small and kind of jewel-like. And they almost look like a little book. And you could hold it in your hand or put it in your pocket. And when you open it, you feel like you’re sort of closer to the person than you might in a different kind of photograph.  

It sort of has this magical quality. And Oliver Wendell Holmes called the daguerreotype a “mirror with a memory,” which is a very nice way of talking about how it holds the picture that it appears to reflect.