Visage from the Past

One of the great things about collecting clocks is that you have an artifact of history - in this way, you can participate in some of the most important developments in the human experience.

This blog has always focused on timekeeping, as well as mechanical musical devices and automata, but I wanted to take the space of a short post to pass on this image.



It struck me as a ghostly presence, a window into history. This is a photograph of Boulevard du Temple in Paris was made in 1838 by Louis Daguerre, inventor of the daguerreotype process of photography. It is likely the first photograph of a human being.

Just think of it - 1838 - well before the American Civil War, well before the American transcontinental railroad... it's hard to imagine what life was like at that time, so it's a real treat to have an actual photograph.

[via designcrave.com]