Photographing Haussmann's Paris

By the mid-19th century, thanks to the widespread development of commercial photography, human beings gained the ability to be transported safely and instantaneously through both time and space. As the field expanded and cameras proliferated, photographers soon bored of the simple posed studio portrait and sought ways to connect viewers to remote and unusual people, places, and situations. The pioneering work of Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (known by his pseudonym, “Nadar”) demonstrates just how quickly and powerfully this new medium was adapted to showcase and interpret the hidden treasures of the urban environment.

By the 1850s the young Nadar had already established an impressive reputation as an illustrator and master caricaturist, drawing bitingly-satirical cartoons of the politicians and scandals of the day. (He proudly adopted his nom-de-plume from a contraction of the French tourne à dard, or “bitter sting,” after the effects of his drawings on those depicted.)