Nadar

Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (also known as Nadar) was born in early April 1820 in Paris, though some sources state he was born in Lyon. His father, Victor Tournachon, was a printer and bookseller. Nadar began to study medicine but quit for economic reasons after his father's death. His work was published in Le Charivari for the first time in 1848. In 1849, he founded ''La Revue Comique à l'Usage des Gens Sérieux. He also edited Le Petit Journal pour Rire''. In 1860, Nadar moved to 35 Boulevard des Capucines where he photographed a wide range of personalities: politicians (Guizot, Proudhon), stage actors (Sarah Bernhardt, Paulus), writers (Hugo, Baudelaire, Sand, Nerval, Gautier, Dumas), painters (Corot, Delacroix, Millet), and musicians (Liszt, Rossini, Offenbach, Verdi, Berlioz). It was published in Le Journal Illustré. He also pioneered the use of artificial lighting in photography, working in the catacombs of Paris. He was thus the first person to photograph from the air with his balloons, as well as the first to photograph underground, in the Catacombs of Paris. For publicity, he recreated balloon flights in his studio with his wife, Ernestine, using a rigged-up balloon gondola. He stayed a passionate aeronaut until he and Ernestine were injured in an accident in Le Géant. Le Géant (The Giant) inspired Jules Verne's Five Weeks in a Balloon. Nadar was the inspiration for the character of Michael Ardan in Verne's From the Earth to the Moon. During the Siege of Paris in 1870–71, Nadar was instrumental in organising balloon flights carrying mail to reconnect the besieged Parisians with the rest of the world, thus establishing the world's first airmail service. He photographed Victor Hugo on his death-bed in 1885. He is credited with having published (in 1886) the first photo-interview (of famous chemist Michel Eugène Chevreul, then a centenarian). Nadar was recognized for breaking the conventions of photographic portrait, choosing to capture the subjects as active participants. As of 1 April 1895, Nadar turned over the Paris Nadar Studio to his son Paul. He moved to Marseille, where he established another photography studio in 1897. On 3 January 1909 he returned to Paris. Nadar died on 20 March 1910, aged 89. He was buried in Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris. The studio continued under the direction of his son and long-term collaborator, Paul Nadar (1856–1939). ==Works==