Photography was coming into its age of popularity in the mid 1800's and the American Civil War became the first war to experience a large-scale documentation the horrors and personal human tragedies of war. The early cameras were large, bulky wooden boxes with large frame plates and lens or lenses. They needed bright sunlight or flash powder to produce an image. Daguerreotypes are direct reproductions on a polished metal plate without a negative thus, unable to be duplicated.

For the first time people began to see the brutal horror of war. The North was less affected by the lack of supplies and as a result many of the albums of the war were carefully staged scenes where the bodies of the dead, mostly Southern dead, were staged to show the stories the photographer wanted to tell. Photographs recorded all things military and as the South began to fall it too was captured by the cameraman.

The photography using negatives used a silver coated glass plates were exposed to light and chemically developed. The 30 to 90 second exposure time made battle pictures nearly impossible as any movement produced blurred images. The collodian, or wet plate process used a glass plate that was chemically treated and exposed for a shorter time up to half a minute. The resulting plate could produce prints on paper in large numbers. Ambrotypes, also known as tintypes (where the positive image was on metal instead of glass) , was another mass process for photos.

Abraham Lincoln was one of the first politicians to leverage the photograph as a means of getting his image known to the people. The photo of Abraham Lincoln taken by Brady, prior to giving the Cooper Union speech was credited, in part, by Lincoln with electing him as President. The photographers were the innovative technological wizards of their day. The photograph was one of the major innovations of its day and one that almost everyone had some participation in. It was also an entrepreneurial occupation herein one could make a reputation and an income from leveraging having taken the photo of President Lincoln or other famous people. The popularity of the photo brought all classes of people before the cameraman. Young men reporting for duty in uniform were captured as were the loved ones and girl friends left behind. Men were found on the battlefields clutching the photos of children, wives and family members. Photographers like Alexander Gardner and the many cameramen for Matthew Brady captured the battlefields and towns ravaged by war and sold their photos to the common people.

As photo portraits were mass produced, they were glued to cardboard and shared in the cart de visite or visiting card. Often signed and personalized, these small images about 2 by 3.5 inches mounted on a card sized 2.5 by 4 inches had become in the late 1850s. The Carte de visite served the purpose of protecting the thin paper photo and as a result many survive today.

All photographs were black and white till first permanent color photo was taken in 1861 by the physicist James Clerk Maxwell. Note however,
even after color film was available, black-and-white photography continued to be popular for decades primarily due to economic reasons and classic appearance.

All of President Abraham Lincoln photographs were in black and white and he was the first President to has his picture taken by many photographers. He was encouraged to use them in his political campaigns for greater recognition outside of Illinois. The first photographs of Lincoln were of him as a lawyer on the Circuit, married and residing in Springfield. Overall, there were over 120 main photographs of Lincoln that were taken over a period of about 7 years.The Lincoln photos that have survived are extremely prized as many original photographs are no longer available and some were destroyed by fire. Ambryotypes (paper prints) have enabled Lincoln photographs to endure the passage of time.

Now, for the first time, Abraham Lincoln photographs images and pictures can be seen in full color and is available in "Color of Lincoln", a unique Abraham Lincoln book publication. The Lincoln book encompasses his interesting life as the "Truly American President", his often debated religious beliefs, his interesting and often tumultous relationship to Mary Todd Lincoln is explored, Lincoln's famous Gettysbury speech as seen through eyewitness accounts, Abraham Lincoln's use of photography in publicity is divulged, and the tragic events of Lincoln's death are unfolded through text and color. http://www.coloroflincoln.com
More information about Abraham Lincoln photography, pictures, and Abraham Lincoln book reviews can be seen in http://blogs.ebay.com/tdbearc/entry/Whats-new-in-Abraham-Lincoln-book-reviews-Lincol/_W0QQidZ736478011