In this competitive city environment, Brady’s presentation of himself and his studio was vital for success. Visitors to his studio would first enter the reception room, a spacious, attractively furnished space with a gallery of sample and celebrity portraits. By imitating the tasteful decoration of a domestic parlor, this public parlor aimed to set customers at ease before they went in to sit for their portraits. The reception room of Brady’s second studio, located at 359 Broadway, received particular praise from critics, who found Brady’s taste in interior decoration as noteworthy as his skills as a photographer.⁹ This lavish parlor included velvet carpeting and a fresco ceiling complete with chandelier. At 40 by 26 feet, it was the largest reception room in the city.¹⁰ An 1853 print (fig. 2) illustrates the atmosphere of comfort and genteel sociability that the tasteful, parlorlike space of the reception room sought to create. In the background of the image, crowds of visitors admire the daguerreotype samples, and celebrity portraits hanging along the reception room’s walls.

Brady’s large collection of celebrity photographs, which covered the walls of his reception room, helped establish his reputation.¹¹ This celebrity gallery showcased Brady’s skill and attracted customers; some people may even have visited the studio simply to marvel at the gallery.¹² Brady went to great lengths to photograph famous individuals: he traveled to Washington, D.C., in 1848 to obtain the likeness of the president and most members of the Senate, and the Supreme Court, and he continued to photograph celebrities for his gallery throughout his career.¹³ For example, when presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln visited New York for his famous 1860 lecture at Cooper Union, he stopped by Brady’s studio for a likeness that became a popular carte-de-visite and was also widely reproduced in the press.¹⁴ Another of Brady’s celebrity daguerreotypes, taken in 1852, depicted the famous vocalist Jenny Lind, whom P. T. Barnum brought to America (fig. 3). The incredible popularity of Lind and the many other notables on Brady’s walls made his gallery one of the city’s favorite spectacles and elevated Brady himself to celebrity status.

After refreshing themselves in Brady’s lavish reception room and admiring the portrait gallery, customers would proceed to the studio area where they sat for their portraits, called the operating room. In contrast to the reception room, the operating room would be sparsely furnished and was typically located above street level with large skylights, which provided natural lighting.¹⁵ Men called operators worked the cameras; for example, the photograph of Jenny Lind was made by operator Luther Boswell. Freed from the task of operating the cameras, Brady instead focused on publicizing the studio, posing sitters for portraits, and helping them relax with his charming and courteous manner.¹⁶ In 1851 an article in the Photographic Art-Journal remarked that although Brady did not take the photographs, “he [was] an excellent artist nevertheless—understands his business so perfectly, and gathers around him the first talent to be found.”¹⁷ Thus Brady was hailed as an artist in spite of his lack of direct involvement in producing the daguerreotypes.

The daguerreotype process could cause the sitter discomfort, which made Brady’s role of alleviating a sitter’s anxiety a challenge. Whereas portrait painters created flattering likenesses in order to please their patrons, sitters at a daguerreotype studio worried that the photographic technology would reveal their every grimace and flaw. Moreover, depending on lighting conditions, daguerreotypes could require long exposures that challenged a customer’s ability to hold still.¹⁸ A clamplike device called a vise helped keep a sitter’s head motionless but would have likely felt quite awkward.¹⁹ An 1850 satirical image titled “Sitting for a Daguerreotype” (fig. 4), which appeared as an illustration to a series of narrative sketches by the popular author T. S. Arthur, comically evokes the sometimes tense relationship between subject and operator. Here the two operators seem quite unsympathetic to the sitter’s unease as they prepare for the portrait. In the story accompanying this image, which played on popular beliefs about the mysterious nature of photography, the naïve sitter flees the studio in fear that the operators are plotting to murder him.²⁰ Brady’s instinct for customer relations, however, helped his customers avoid this sort of negative experience.

An 1851 article from the trade publication The Daguerreian Journal described the operator’s congeniality as a key element in taking successful portraits. According to this article, stubborn customers “will take the seat for a picture (which they will insist must be good, or they cannot take it), with a wearied, anxious or thoughtless expression of countenance. Here is trouble for the operator; with such persons, the judicious artist will now call in to requisition his tact. He will . . . engage his sitter’s attention, and direct his thoughts by a pleasant conversation; or by timely suggestion, arouse up a cheerful and lively expression.”²¹ 

Brady’s charisma and gift for setting customers at ease, exactly the skills described above as crucial for taking flattering daguerreotype portraits, helped his sitters appear at their best. In this ambrotype, or photograph on glass (fig. 5), the female operator and subject have prevailed against the awkwardness of the vise to achieve a natural, graceful likeness.²² Female operators were quite rare; if women worked in the daguerreotype industry at all, they typically did so behind the scenes in producing images.²³

Brady’s charisma and gift for setting customers at ease, exactly the skills described above as crucial for taking flattering daguerreotype portraits, helped his sitters appear at their best. In this ambrotype, or photograph on glass (fig. 5), the female operator and subject have prevailed against the awkwardness of the vise to achieve a natural, graceful likeness. Female operators were quite rare; if women worked in the daguerreotype industry at all, they typically did so behind the scenes in producing images. 

Finally, Brady’s customer would wait to receive his or her finished portrait. Directly before the exposure, a silver-coated photographic plate would have been made light sensitive through the application of iodine vapors. After the photograph was taken, the plate would be delivered from the operating room to hidden workrooms; the customer never saw any part of the image production process. Workers treated the plate with mercury vapors to develop the image and then fixed the image by removing the last of the photosensitive salts in a chemical bath. To prevent damage to the fragile image, daguerreotypes would be sealed in small cases with a protective glass cover. This finished product would be delivered to the customer within an hour of the portrait session. Finally, the customer could take the portrait home, perhaps choosing to keep it in the parlor, where family and friends could admire the likeness. 

Brady’s charisma and entrepreneurial skills made him one of the most influential portrait photographers in the city. Moreover, in the midst of nineteenth-century New York’s thriving image production industry, Brady’s portrait studio offered individuals a compelling opportunity to participate not only in the viewing of urban visual culture but also in the making of this phenomenon by sitting for a portrait.