S. D. (Samuel Dwight) Humphrey

Samuel Dwight Humphrey was an American photographer and writer born in 1823. Best known for American Hand Book of the Daguerreotype and A Practical Manual of the Collodion Process, he wrote clear, hands-on books for readers learning the fast-changing techniques of early photography.

Humphrey was also closely tied to the photographic press. Sources identify him as the publisher of Humphrey's Journal of Photography, one of the earliest photography periodicals in New York, and as the editor of The Daguerreian Journal. Contemporary bibliographic records and later references also describe him as a prominent daguerreotypist and note that he was among the early photographers to make an image of the moon.

He died in 1883. Although not as widely remembered as some later photographic figures, his manuals and editorial work helped document and share the practical knowledge behind one of the most important new technologies of the 19th century.