The photographer known simply as Nadar was born Gaspar Felix Tournachon.  Apart from being a photographer, Nadar was as journalist, caricaturist, and writer.  His caricatures appeared in the 1840ís in leading periodicals including,  Charivari ,  and culminated in Le Pantheon Nadar  (1854),  a collection of satirical representations of contemporary figures.  It was however his portraits of the artistic elite of the Second Empire that won Nadar the most recognition.  Ignoring the emotional remark of  Baudelaire that photography was ìvulgarî proof of the ìstupidity of the public,î1    Nadar set out to turn photography in to a highly competitive and distinguished art form.

    Nadar opened his first studio with his brother Adrian in 1853.  It quickly became a meeting place for not only the photographerís fellow bohemians,  but a whole menagerie of theater celebrities,  wealthy Parisian eccentrics, and impressionist painters who were drawn to the artistic atmosphere.  In 1874 the studio served as a gallery for the first exhibition of French Impressionists rejected by the Louvre.  Like Manet,  Nadar  placed great emphasis on the importance of the inner psychology of his subjects.   His subjects are usually photographed from a three-quarters angle against a plain dark background, under the diffused light from the glass roof door of his studio.  Nadarís reputation as a spirited iconoclast was enhanced by his exploits in his large hot air balloon Le Geant,  from which he made the worldís first  aerial photograph in 1858.
Nadar wrote novels and essays including his autobiography, My Life as a Photographer in 1899.

1  French Photography By Claude Nori. p.7