1100
Further Reading
Armstrong, Carol, Scenes in a Library: Reading the Photograph
in the Book, 1843–75. MIT Press. Boston, MA:. 1998.
Parr, Martin, and Gerry Badger. The Photobook: A History, vol.
1, London: Phaidon Press, 2004.
PHOTOGRAPHY AS A PROFESSION
The professional exploitation of photography came
about surprisingly quickly after the daguerreotype be-
came a practical proposition. The era of the professional
began in the early 1840s with a few operators produc-
ing high price images for an elite few. The nineteenth
century ended with photography as a major employer
catering for a mass market, and with professional pho-
tographers establishing collectives and associations to
protect their interests.
Those fi rst sixty years of professional photography
were punctuated with major ‘fi rsts’ and with the profes-
sion generating and nurturing most of the applications
of the new medium which are taken for granted today.
During that time, many thousands of photographic
studios opened their doors. Very few of them survived
for any length of time as a result of fi erce competition,
falling prices and a lack of business acumen.
The fi rst photographers were, predominantly, artists
and scientists who explored the potential of the medium
out of curiosity and fascination. It was not until expo-
sure times were reduced suffi ciently to make portraiture
a practical proposition that the photographic studio
evolved. That the daguerreotypist could do in a few
minutes what had taken the miniature painter hours or
even days to complete immediately caught the imagina-
tion of those able to pay the not inconsiderable cost of
having their likenesses made.
The dawn of professional photography in the United
States was marked as 1840, and the New York Sun car-
ried an account of the opening by Alexander S Wolcott
and John Johnson of the world’s fi rst professional pho-
tographic studio on March 4:
Sun Drawn Miniatures.– Mr A. S. Wolcott, No.52 First
Street, has introduced an improvement on the daguerreo-
type, by which he is enabled to execute miniatures, with
an accuracy as perfect as nature itself, in the short space of
three to fi ve minutes. We have seen one, taken on Monday,
when the state of the atmosphere was far from favourable,
the fi delity of which is truly astonishing. The miniatures
are taken on silver plate, and enclosed in bronze cases,
for the low price of three dollars for single ones.
This is believed to be the earliest publication of the
cost of having a daguerreotype portrait taken profes-
sionally. Three dollars represented a week’s earnings
for the majority of Americans, clearly placing the da-
guerreotype in the same social stratum as the miniature
painting.
The fi rst photographic studio to be opened in France
is believed to have been that of Nicholas-Marie Paymal
Lerebours, which opened in late spring 1841. He had
sold daguerreian equipment from his optical instrument
shop at 13 place du pont-neuf in Paris, since taking
over the business from his father in 1839. During his
fi rst year as a professional photographer he is reported
as having taken around 1500 portraits. Other claimants
for France’s fi rst studio include E. T. Montmirel, and
Louis-August Bisson. Montmirel reportedly charged a
minimum of ten francs per portrait in 1842, again the
equivalent of a week’s wages for the average worker.
Also in 1841 Lerebours wrote and published his
Derniers perfectionnements apportés au daguerreotype
and in the following year published his Treatise on
photography, which sold eighteen hundred copies. A
fourth edition appeared in 1843.
Richard Beard opened what is believed to have
been Europe’s fi rst professional photographic studio at
London’s Royal Polytechnic Institution, on March 23,
1841, just a few weeks earlier than Lerebours.
Beard, who had initially paid £150 to purchase
a licence to use the daguerreotype from Daguerre’s
English agent Miles Berry, later bought out all Berry’s
rights and effectively therefore gained control of profes-
sional photography in England. His patent control and
resulting licensing policy, granting exclusive rights to
practice the process professionally within defi ned geo-
graphical areas, arguably constrained the development
and growth of professional photography in England for
several years.
The Frenchman Antoine François Jean Claudet
opened his fi rst studio in London in June 1841, hav-
ing acquired a licence direct from Daguerre. That set
him uniquely outside Beard’s patent control. Claudet’s
Adelaide Gallery prospered for many years, and in the
early years especially, was the setting for some of the
most signifi cant improvements to the daguerreotype
as far as the professional exploitation of photography
was concerned. Claudet’s chemical improvements con-
siderably reduced exposures, and his other innovations
included the painted studio backgrounds which became
popular worldwide.
The media was keen to publicise the new medium,
and many local newspaper stories were devoted to
the opening of professional portrait studios. One of
Claudet’s former operatives, a ‘Mr Edwards,’ keen to
escape the cost of Beard’s English licences when he
sought to establish his own professional studio, moved
to Glasgow, and opened his own business in the city. The
Glasgow Herald newspaper in March 1843 noted that
Mr Edwards, a cadet of the Adelaide Gallery in London—
which has turned out some of the very fi nest specimens
of the art—has established his painting rooms (to speak
in the old phrase) in a handsome saloon 43 Buchanan