Felix Nadar ( 1820 – 1910)

He was the first person in history to take aerial photographs (he was a balloonist) and was one of the pioneers of artificial lighting (he photographed in the catacombs of Paris).

360° Self-Portrait taken on a revolving chair

It was said by one contemporary that "all the outstanding figures of his era – literary, artistic, dramatic, political, intellectual – have filed through his studio."  Nadar is said to have had a friendly and outgoing personality and was good friends with many of his portrait subjects.

Nadar's Studio at 35 Boulevard des Capucines in Paris

Illustration by Nadar showing all the influential people who he had sketched during his newspaper days

Nadar was artistic, immensely imaginative, and possessed a flair for the dramatic.  His photographic portraits became known not just for the quality of his work, but for bringing out the character of the subject as well.  Nadar also used his creative talent to push the boundaries of early photography.  His curiosity led him to be one of the first to attempt aerial photography from a balloon and he was the first to photograph the Paris catacombs using artificial light.

Nadar self-portrait in a balloon basket

Nadar's earliest surviving aerial photograph of Paris

As Nadar kept pushing the bounds of photography, he began dreaming of new ways to expand his abilities to take aerial photography.  In 1863, he built a giant balloon with an enormous gondola.  Dubbed "Le Géant" (or "The Giant"), the wicker gondola had a circumference of well over 300 feet (100 meters) and was about 15 feet tall.  It included six rooms with four beds, restroom facilities, a balcony, and a lithograph press and darkroom to create prints that could be dropped to the earth – all without the inconvenience of having to land.  The gondola also allowed for wheels to be attached, so that after landing it could be pulled by horses.  By way of comparison, Nadar's 1863 Giant was a little larger in volume than today's Goodyear blimps.

"Le Géant" in Brussels, 1864

Crowds thronged to see Nadar's balloon, so much so that when Nadar visited Brussels, he became the first person to employ crowd control barriers (still called Nadar Barriers in Belgium).

 

Nadar self-portrait in the Paris Catacombs photographed using artificial light    

Workers in the Catacombs

 The Paris Catacombs, one of the most famous ossuaries in the world, is made up of a series of underground quarry tunnels that run for about 170 miles. This city of the dead contains the disarticulated bones from an estimated six million bodies that were exhumed from Parisian cemeteries in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Sarah Bernardt