Trapezoids of sunshine

Louis looked at the painting and felt, for the first time, an almost painful sense of pride. It had taken him a full year to paint. He had mixed the colors to match a June dawn, preserving the exact tints of the cornices and the facades of the sky on the backs of envelopes. Using a camera obscura, he had painstakingly copied the shadow lines and the trapezoids of sunshine. There were a hundred shades of yellow and blue trapped inside the painting, a thousand inflections of daylight and shadow. Without knowing it, Louis Daguerre had tried to paint a photograph. [127-128]

Smith, Dominic. The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre. Atria Books. ISBN: 0743271149.