Felix Nadar

Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (known as Félix Nadar) (1820-1910) was a French writer, caricaturist, and photographer who is remembered primarily for his portraits. 

As a young man, he studied medicine in Lyon, 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 Nadar settled in Paris and began to sell caricatures to humour magazines.

By 1853, although he still considered himself primarily a caricaturist, he had become an expert photographer and had opened a portrait studio. Nadar's immediate 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. It was not until 1858, however, that he was able to make a successful aerial photograph, the world's first, from a balloon. This led Daumier to issue a satirical lithograph of Nadar photographing Paris from a balloon. It was titled "Nadar Raising Photography to the Height of Art."