In the early 1890s, Paul Nadar began taking advantage of new developments in the European rail system to escape the day-to-day routine of the studio. In 1890, he took part in the Tashkent Exhibition, which was organized to promote the new trans-Caspian railroad line that the Russian Army had built in 1886-1888. Paul Nadar made several portraits of General Annenkov, the engineer in charge of the project, whose idea it had probably been for the French photographer to attend.
The Exhibition allowed him to present the General Photography Office’s products, but the journey was above all an excellent opportunity to demonstrate the instant cameras’ capacities. He set out with a considerable amount of equipment to record his travels: a traditional 24 × 16-inch portable darkroom with a tripod, as well as several instant cameras (both Kodaks and Nadar Détectives), more than 150 glass silver-gelatin negative plates and plenty of rolls of Eastman film, as well as the chemicals and sensitive paper required to develop them.

Paul Nadar traveled around Samarkand, the Caucasus and Turkestan for three months. Upon his return, he announced that he had brought back 1,800 pictures, including landscapes, views of monuments, portraits of the population and scenes from daily life. His instant cameras had allowed him to capture the spontaneous, un-posed scenes he had been a witness to. He still preferred the darkroom, however, for architectural monuments and for formal portraits of important people, like the Emir of Bukhara.
As soon as he got back to Paris, Paul Nadar began promoting his work in the press and at conferences. His prints were displayed at several World’s Fairs, until 1896. The geographer Édouard Blanc, whom he had met during his journey, projected Nadar’s images to illustrate a conference he gave at the Geographic Society in 1892, and again when his work was published in the Annals of Geography two years later. The images were sold at the studio in different formats: prints (3.5 x 3.5, 5 x 7 and 12 × 16 inches), projection plates and even stereoscopic views.
Paul Nadar brought back a large collection of “Muslim art” (as it was then known): essentially weapons and textiles, to which he devoted a separate display room at the studio. The collection was also shown at the Muslim Art exhibit at the Palace of Industry in 1893 and the Colonial Art exhibit in Lyon the following year.A second, shorter trip corresponded to a commission from the just-completed railroad from Jaffa to Jerusalem Station. Construction, which was sponsored by the entrepreneur Joseph Navon and financed by Bernard Callas, was carried out by the Paris Company of Public Works and Construction. In the fall of 1892, Paul Nadar went to Palestine with Albert Tissandier, equipped this time with a 12 × 16 darkroom and silver-gelatin glass negatives. His work on the railroad line lasted only a few days. The manner that the few known prints were presented bears witness to their promotional nature. He took advantage of his trip to go on the traditional "Grand Tour" visiting Alexandria, Cairo, Beirut, Tyr and Zion, and Damascus, as well as stopping in Greece and Constantinople on his way home.