Nadar
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| Antoine-Henri Becquerel |
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| François Certain Canrobert |
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| self-portrait (?) as balloonist (Image rights) |
Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (born 1820, died 1910) alias Nadar was a French photographer, caricaturist, journalist, novelist and balloonist. After abandoning medical studies he became journalist. In 1849 he founded the magazine Revue comique. In 1854 he opened his own photographic studio. He began to omit studio background paintings and image retouching. He focused on lighting, silhouette, face and hands, thus creating his distinct style. He portrayed many famous people like Charles Baudelaire, Honoré de Balzac, Honoré Daumier, Gioachino Rossini and Sarah Bernhardt. He constructed a balloon with propeller, thus inspiring Jules Verne to write a balloonist novel. He did a sensational balloon flight from Paris to Hanover, making several aerial photographs during the travel. With his long-time exposures of Paris' canalisation and catacombs he also documented the world from below. In 1874 he organized the first great impressionists' art exhibition, showing paintings of Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Camille Pissarro and Paul Cézanne. In 1900 he published his memoirs under the title "Quand j'étais photographe".
In much of his work Félix was assisted by his brother Adrien Tournachon, himself a photographer, and his son Paul Nadar, who later took over Nadar's Paris studio (Félix retired to Marseille for a while, and opened a studio there). Paul also sold cameras, and helped to popularise Eastman's roll film.[1] Nadar's first studio was at 35 Boulevard des Capucines, but this business failed financially, and he relocated to cheaper premises on the Rue d'Anjou, near the Gare Saint Lazare. The camera business was at 53 Rue des Mathurins, no distance from the Rue d'Anjou studio. In the 1920s, Paul Nadar opened a studio at 48 Rue de Bassano.
Cameras
- Nadar Express Detective 1888 - plate 'detective' camera adaptable for sheet or roll film;
- Field camera[2]
Notes
- ↑ The Nadars, a photographic legend; virtual exhibition at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France
- ↑ Nadar 18x24 field camera in mahogany, with Ross Rapid Symmetrical lens, sold at the fifteenth Westlicht Photographica Auction, in May 2009.
Sources
- German Wikipedia
- Images provided by Smithsonian Institution, State Library of New South Wales, and Dan Iggers
