Another daguerreotypist Gabriel Harrison describes his work:
“Gently we moved the death couch in the window in order to get the best light, though by a ray. What a face! What a picture did it reveal … The mother held up a white cloth to give me reflected light to subdue the shadows. All was still, I took the cap from the camera. About two minutes had elapsed, when a bright sun ray broke through the clouds, dashed its bright beams upon the reflector, and shedding, as it were, a supernatural light. I was startled—the mother riveted with frightful gaze, for at the same moment we beheld the muscles about the mouth of the child move, and her eyes partially open—a smile played upon her lips, a long gentle sigh heaved her bosom, and as I replaced the cap, her head fell over to one side. The mother screamed.
“She lives! she lives!” and she fell upon her knees by the side of the couch.
“No,” was my reply; “she is dead now, the web of life is broken.”
The camera was doing its work as the cord that bound the gentle being to earth snapped and loosened the spirit for another and better world. If the earth lost a flower, Heaven gained an angel.”
With that in mind, although this is not his daguerreotype, it perfectly depicts the scene.