During the State Republican convention in Decatur, local photographer E. A. Barnwell, owner of the People's Ambrotype Gallery, set out to find the “biggest” man among the participants. According to oral tradition, he sought the tallest man, but learned that the man considered biggest in both stature and importance was Abraham Lincoln. On May 9, 1860, Barnwell asked Lincoln to come to his gallery near the convention, where Lincoln posed for a portrait, creating the only known photograph of himself in Decatur. The next day, May 10, Lincoln was nominated as the presidential candidate by the Illinois Republicans. Later, on May 18, 1860, when the National Republican Convention in Chicago nominated Lincoln, delegates were showered with prints made from an Alexander Hesler photograph, but no known prints of the Barnwell photograph were used in any part of the 1860 presidential campaign. Lincoln was deeply interested in advances in technology and science, and that fascination was especially evident in photography. Although modern photography had been invented only in 1839, Lincoln was photographed at least thirty-nine times before becoming president in November 1860, often in connection with important moments in his life, including a law case associated with his 1857 Hesler photograph and his Cooper Union Address in New York, where Mathew Brady made the portrait that led Lincoln to say, “Brady and the Cooper Institute made me President.”