Scientists Work to Save Earliest Photographs from Being Lost ForeverEggs

09/17/2013

Smithsonian, Argonne Team Up to Save Earliest Known Photographs

From VOA Learning English, welcome to As It Is. I’m Steve Ember.

Today we tell about the efforts of scientists in the United States to help save early photographs from being lost forever.

We’ll hear about one man’s campaign to help bring peace to the Middle East.

Finally…

General: “Who are you?”

Hawkeye: “Uh, Captain Benjamin Franklin Pierce. Who’re you, Sarge?”

General: “What do you think this star means?”

Hawkeye: “You’re Tinkerbell?”

We remember the anniversary of the opening of the long running television program “M*A*S*H. The series about the adventures of doctors and nurses during the Korean War was broadcast for 11 years. And its repeats will probably run forever.

But first, all of us who love photography in its many forms may want to take just a moment, before pressing that shutter button for your next picture, to look back…way back…to the middle of the 1800s.

The invention of the daguerreotype in the 19th century led to modern photography. With daguerreotypes, people could sit for just a few minutes while their image was captured in what is now known as a photograph. Before that, people had to sit long hours for an artist to paint a picture.