What is the consensus on the early (1850) photographic image of SLC?

Image is reproduced here, among others --

https://www.imaging-resource.com/news/2013/03/05/mark-twain-celebrity-photographys-first-superstar-and-critic


" Twain at age 15, photo attributed to GH Jones, circa 1850, courtesy of
Bancroft Library Pictorial Collections"

(At that link, the text suggests he was a cabin boy at that time, which I
believe is almost certainly wrong.)

I recently hazarded a guess:

(ME) "I've known that photograph for years. And I've seen Orion's printing
equipment. And -- I just now realized: He's holding those letters that way
because they are set in the compositor's rule! It just *looks* like a belt
buckle. It is a clever hack-- and I bet he had to put those letters back
where he found them.

Photographic reproduction (whatever the actual process, like
daguerreotype)  was not all that common to mere working people in the US
Midwest at that period, as far as I know. So one wonders how it is that
such an image came to be created (and paid for) .

Who knows the real story?

DDD