Daguerre, Louis Jacques Mande, << dah GAIR, lwee zhahk mahn DAY >> (1787-1851), a French stage designer and painter, introduced the first popular form of photography. His pictures were called daguerreotypes.
Daguerre was born on Nov. 18, 1787, in Cormeilles-en-Parisis, near Paris. He became a talented theater artist and operated a scenery theater called the Diorama in Paris. There he displayed huge painted scenes from nature, using lighting to create the illusion of changing views. A desire to improve these scenes led him to work with J. N. Niepce, a French scientist who had invented the first photographic technique. Experimenting with this technique, Daguerre discovered the daguerreotype process in 1837. The permanent mirrorlike images produced through the process brought him worldwide fame. He died on July 10, 1851.
