164
Between 1848 and 1849 he made the daguerretypes of
the 900 members of the Assemblée Nationale. In 1851
Louis Auguste became a founding member of the “So-
ciété héliographique.” The “photographic print shop”
of the Bissons in the Rue Garancière, was next to the
industrial area of Paris, which was where the brothers
made prints from their own negatives as well as from
other colleagues’ negatives. In 1855 he expanded his
studio up to 3 stories with 5 rooms in which to develop
pictures. After he becomes bankrupt, the 59-years old
Louis Auguste collaborated with Emile Placet, after
which he ended his photographic career.
Auguste Rosalie Bisson, was born May 1, 1826 ,
and died on April 22, 1900 in Paris. He learned the
daguerreotype process from his father and brother. He
assisted his brother with the photographs of 900 mem-
bers of the Assemblée Nationale. In April 1850 he was
appointed to the Weight and Measure Offi ce in Ram-
bouillet. For a short time he maintained a photographic
studio with Guevin in Paris, where he seldom worked
because of his employment in Rambouillet. In 1852 he
became a partner with his brother Louis Auguste but left
in February of the same year, however he collaborated
extensively with his brother before photographing the
Alps and Italy. On July 24, 1861, he reached the sum-
mit of the Mont Blanc. After going bankrupt in 1863,
he established an undertaking with the youngest Bisson,
and specialized in architectural photography. In June
of 1866 his fi rm failed, and so became an independent
collaborator for other photo studios. In 1868 he again
attempted to climb the Mont Blanc for the photographic
fi rm “Léon & Lévy.” He travelled to Egypt in 1869 with
Edouard Welling. In 1873 he photographed the new
halls of Le Louvre for the fi rm “Goupil,” and in 1883
he provided services for “Adolphe Braun & Cie” in the
Alsatian Dornach, and accompanied the son, Gaston
Braun to Berlin. With this fi nal travel, he ended his
photographic career. Auguste Rosalie was also a mem-
ber of the society of watercolour painters (“Société des
Aquafortistes “) in Paris.
Further Reading
Chlumsky Milan, Eskildsen Ute, Marbot Bernard (Ed.): The
brethren Bisson—rise and fall of photograph fi rm, (Museum
Folkwang, Essen), Verlag der Kunst, Berlin, 1999. (There
another literature sources)
Chlumsky Milan, Eskildsen Ute, Marbot Bernard (Ed.): De fl èche
en cime 1840–1870, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris
1999 (French version of catalogue of Folkwang Museum).
BLACK, JAMES WALLACE (1825–1896)
American photographer and inventor
The son of a carpenter, Black was born in Francestown,
New Hampshire, on 10 February 1825. Apparently or-
phaned as a teenager, he worked in a Lowell, Massachu-
setts tannery and then in the town’s Boott Cotton Mills
from 1842 to 1844. In 1846 he learned daguerreotypy
from John A. Lerow in Boston and then served as an
itinerant photographer for several years before return-
ing to Boston to work for L.H. Hale & Company where
he operated the rotary buffi ng machine used to polish
the silver-coated daguerreotype plates. Black partnered
briefl y with Loyal M. Ives and then began apprenticing
with John Adams Whipple around 1850 at 96 Washing-
ton Street. He became a full partner in 1856 and until
1859 they operated under the name of Whipple & Black.
At the height of its success, their studio rivaled that of the
well-known fi rm of Southworth & Hawes with whom
they maintained a healthy competition.
One of the mainstays of any photographic business
in the nineteenth century was portraiture, and Black was
well known for his ability to secure the best moods and
expressions in his clients due to his “natural courtesy
and gentlemanly attention.” However, Black seems to
have been more interested in composition than in cap-
turing the psychology of his sitter, favoring pyramidal
compositions and massing of fi gures that enabled him
to play with positive and negative space.
This experimentation with composition is refl ected
in a project he undertook in 1854 to photograph the
landscape of his native New Hampshire. Taken fi fteen
years before the great landscape photographs of the
American West, Black’s photographs represent some
of the earliest views taken with the glass negative/paper
positive wet plate process, in this case, the crystalotype
process pioneered by Whipple and which Black was
instrumental in improving. According to art historian
Sally Pierce, while the resulting salted paper prints
lack the sharpness, detail, and sense of depth that can
be found in albumen prints, they have a textural quality
that works well in capturing the rugged landscape of the
New England countryside.
For unknown reasons Whipple and Black dissolved
their partnership in 1859. After leaving Whipple, Black
purchased the studio of J.B. Heywood at 173 Wash-
ington Street and in 1860 formed a partnership with
itinerant daguerreotypist Perez M. Batchelder. The new
fi rm was known for its high-quality cartes-de-visite and
stereo views and was praised for the artistry of individual
and group portraits.
In 1860 Black attempted to take aerial views of Provi-
dence, Rhode Island, but had diffi culties developing the
wet collodion plates in the makeshift darkroom he set up
in the basket of the balloon. In October of the same year,
he produced six successful negatives of Boston, including
views of the downtown and waterfront, from a balloon
tethered above the Boston Common. These were the fi rst
aerial views taken in America, a feat that was well publi-
cized in the photographic journals and local papers.