Showmanship, mapmaking from a balloon, carrier pigeons and micro photography

 

Sarah Bernhardt has been referred to as "the most famous actress the world has ever known"
Sarah Bernhardt in Costume, circa 1860


Nadar, French writer, caricaturist, and photographer who is remembered primarily for his photographic portraits, which are considered to be among the best done in the 19th century.
As a young man, he studied medicine in Lyon, France, but, when his father’s publishing house went bankrupt in 1838, he was forced to earn his own livelihood. He began to write newspaper articles that he signed “Nadar.” In 1842 he settled in Paris and began to sell caricatures to humour magazines. His success stemmed partly from his sense of showmanship. He had the entire building that housed his studio painted red and his name printed in gigantic letters across a 50-foot (15-metre) expanse of wall. The building became a local landmark and a favourite meeting place of the intelligentsia of Paris. When in 1874 the painters later known as Impressionists needed a place to hold their first exhibit, Nadar lent them his gallery. He was greatly pleased by the storm the exhibit raised; the notoriety was good for business.  Nadar was a tireless innovator. In 1855 he patented the idea of using aerial photographs in mapmaking and surveying.   Nadar also wrote novels, essays, satires, and autobiographical works. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/401417/Nadar

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He conceived the idea of mapmaking and surveying from a balloon, completing his first aerial photographs c.1858.
Read more: http://www.answers.com/library/Columbia%20Encyclopedia%20%252D%20People-cid-655457


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In 1857, Nadar began to experiment with electric lighting and then opened the Salon of Electric Photography in Paris. In 1858, Nadar took the first aerial photographs of Paris from a hot air balloon. Nadar was named Inspector General of Photographers of the French Army in 1861. From 1861 to 1862, Nadar made photographic reportages on the sewers and catacombs of Paris. In 1870 Nadar organized a carrier-pigeon and micro photography system to deliver messages out of the beseiged city of Paris.http://www.getty.edu/vow/ULANFullDisplay?find=&role=&nation=&subjectid=500005199



Gustave Eiffel, photographed by Nadar.
French civil engineer renowned for the tower in Paris that bears his name.