I have a daguerreotype of my 3rd great grandmother Elizabeth Young Hiter, taken when she was quite old. On the back my great grandmother identifies her as her childrens’ great grandmother. Elizabeth’s great grandmother was Mary Hawkins Craig, one of half a dozen female Revolutionary War Patriots.
I wonder if photographers developed neurological damage.
This story of recovery reminds me of the time, back in the day, when NASA, or the equivalent back then, put cameras on board rockets and sent them to take pictures of the stars above the turbulence of the upper atmosphere. The film was then parachuted back to earth a developed.
On one mission, the camera lens was mistakenly stopped way, way, down and when the film was developed there was little of use because it was too late to over-develop in compensation.
They gave the black and white negatives to a girl at an Alabama army base to do what she pleased with it.
She exposed the film to radiation, making the silver atoms that formed the images radioactive. Then she made contact sheets using the radiation as the only light source, and saved the day.
Reminds me that the scientists keeping teasing us with stories about their progress in deciphering the library scrolls that were burned in the library of Piso (?) at Herculaneum.
(I remember it was somebody The Elder. :-) but didn’t look it up and took a short. Damn dementia.)