The Nadars, a photographic legend

The Nadars

fr

Report on the sewers of Paris: sewer workers on a boat

Félix Nadar, 1865

Albumen print from a collodion glass plate negative, 22.2 x 19.1 cm.
BnF, Prints and Photographs Department, EO-15 (22)-PET FOL
© Bibliothèque nationale de France
Félix Nadar filed a patent application for photography by artifical light in 1861. The hundred or so shots taken of the Catacombs in 1862, then of the sewers in 1865, constitute the most spectacular application of his technique. Those reports were actually news stories: they documented the sanitation efforts put into effect by imperial dictate after several terrible outbreaks of cholera.