Two early portrait photographers ahead of their time.

Nadar used direct lighting on his subjects to bring out the features he would normally be accentuating for his caricature work. He used his portraits to assist with his first “PanthéonNadar,” (1854) a set of two gigantic lithographs portraying caricatures of prominent Parisians. Nadar also went on to pioneer aerial photography which was an important advance in map making. He took his first aerial photograph from a hot air balloon in 1858.


Portrait of our favorite critic and photography hater Baudelaire. Late 1850s.


Daumier's satirical lithograph of Nadar elevating the heights of photography.

After receiving a camera as a gift about 1863, Julia Margaret Cameron converted a chicken coop into a studio and a coal bin into a darkroom and began making portraits. She photographed such people as: John Herschel (name sound familiar from previous classes?) and Charles Darwin. Though initially often criticized for her not so perfect technical abilities like having some photos being out of focus, she was later applauded for her value of spiritual depth.


She also collaborated with poet Alfred Lord Tennyson (referenced in post below) for his Idylls of the King (1874–75 )to photograph her friends and servants in imitation of popular Romantic and Pre-Raphaelite paintings of the day.

Next class, photography for social change. Including: Henry Mayhew, Jacob A. Riis, Richard Beard, John Thomson, Thomas Annan, Paul Martin, Lewis Hine, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, and so on.