Row, row, row your boat

Daguerrotype

Seems like it would be more 1850 than 1950, but it definitely has the look:
A daguerreotype photograph of the Nobel House in Turku from 1842

And holy crap, that's a punishingly unhealthy process:
"To make the image, a daguerreotypist polished a sheet of silver-plated copper to a mirror finish; treated it with fumes that made its surface light-sensitive; exposed it in a camera for as long as was judged to be necessary, which could be as little as a few seconds for brightly sunlit subjects or much longer with less intense lighting; made the resulting latent image on it visible by fuming it with mercury vapor; removed its sensitivity to light by liquid chemical treatment; rinsed and dried it; and then sealed the easily marred result behind glass in a protective enclosure."