261
CAMMAS, HENRI (1813–1888)
French photographer
Henri Cammas was a typical fi gure of the amateur pho-
tograph. Born in 1813, he was interested in each new
technique able to promote scientifi c progress.
This friend of Koenig Bey, the famous orientalist,
decided to travel in Egypt, Syria, Palestine and Persia
and asked for a mission at the French ministry for fi ne
art in March 1859.
Accompanied by his wife and André Lefèvre, they
left for Egypt in April 1859 and traveled three years long.
They brought back about 200 photographs: eighty huge
pictures (about 2 feet and 4 inches × 1 foot and 8 inches)
and approximately one hundred other pictures, particu-
larly using calotype technique (almost all conserved at
the French national library) and wet collodion.
They also published in 1862 a report about Egypt
called “La vallée du Nil, Impressions et photographies”
(“The Nile valley, beliefs and photographs”) where they
described very precisely daily life during the travel
as well as monuments, and gave advices for potential
travelers.
He did not continue his photographic practice after
his trip but he became member of the French photo-
graphic Society in 1863 and exploited his work for few
years. Henri Cammas died near Paris, 26 December,
1888.
Marion Perceval
Publications
Cammas H. and Lefévre A., La vallée du Nil, Paris: L. Hachette,
1862.
Le Tour du monde: nouveau journal des voyages, Paris : Hachette,
1863, 193–224, 216.
Exhibitions
1867, Universal exhibition.
1863, London, Photographic Society (Prize Medal).
1863, French Photographic Society.
1864, French Photographic Society.
CANADA
The camera recorded a wide variety of subject matter
in nineteenth century Canada, from the arrival of new
immigrants to the country, to the construction of a
transcontinental railway. As occurred in the rest of the
world, the most common type of photography in this
period was portraiture. Most major towns and cities
had at least one permanent commercial photographic
establishment or were visited on a regular basis by
itinerant photographers. However, photography was
also employed by the government to gather information
about the largely unknown interior of the country often
to the end of assessing areas for their resource value or
suitability for cultivation. In this respect, the camera
became a very powerful tool in the project of white
settler colonization and nation building. Photographs
frequently depicted Canada as vast and empty, and in
need cultivation and settlement. Images of the land as
limitless in both resources and opportunities, in addition
to select representations of natural phenomena, operated
to lure investors, settlers and travelers to the country. The
depiction of indigenous peoples also entered this process
with photographs refl ecting the period’s diverse ideas of
the aboriginal as exotic, curious, savage or noble.
The fi rst known practice of photography in Canada
occurred in the year following François Arago’s an-
nouncement of the daguerreotype process on August
19th, 1839. In early 1840, Hugh Lee Pattinson, an
amateur photographer, is believed to have taken the
fi rst daguerreotype in the country while on a visit from
England. His view of Niagara Falls was reproduced in an
1841 edition of Noël Marie Paymal Lerebours’ Excur-
sions daguerriennes. The fi rst volume of this publication
also included two works by Pierre-Gaspard-Gustave Joly
de Lotbinière, a Swiss born French Canadian seigneur
with property outside Quebec City. In October 1839,
Joly de Lotbinière made several daguerreotypes while
traveling in Greece. He continued to journey and photo-
graph, producing in total thirty-fi ve views of the Middle
East, fi ve of which were reproduced as engravings by
Lerebours in his publications. Joly de Lotbinière’s views
were also published in Hector Horeau’s 1849 publication
Panorama d’Egypte et du Nubie.
The fi rst recorded commercial daguerreotypists in
Canada were two enterprising Americans, A.H. Halsey
and Henry S. Sadd, who arrived in Lower Canada in
September, 1840. They offered their services fi rst to
residents of Montreal, then to those of Quebec City
only to leave two months later complaining they lacked
the necessary amount of sunlight for proper exposures.
A year later, an anonymous Frenchman, perhaps the
lithographer Charles Severin (or Seweryn or Severyn,
the spelling of the last name varies), also visited Quebec
City, offering his services in the art of la daguerreotypie.
In the same year, Montreal and Quebec City saw the
arrival of Mrs. Fletcher, “Professor and Teacher of the
Photogenic Art,” who, with her phrenologist husband,
settled in the area from August 10 to October 5, 1841. In
Toronto, the artist and portrait painter Richard A. Paul-
ing took daguerreotypes of the local citizenry. Further
east, two itinerant photographers, Hodgkinson and But-
ters, advertised their skills as daguerreotypists in Saint
John, New Brunswick in 1841. They also taught the
daguerreotype process to others such as John Clow and
Thomas Hanford Wentworth both of whom later opened
portrait studios in the same city. In 1843, Hodgkinson
and Butters recorded the “likeness” of Sam Martin, a