18 Facts About Nadar

Nadar began to study medicine but quit for economic reasons after his father's death.

Nadar started working as a caricaturist and novelist for various newspapers.

Nadar fell in with the Parisian bohemian group of Gerard de Nerval, Charles Baudelaire, and Theodore de Banville.

Nadar's work was published in Le Charivari for the first time in 1848.

Nadar took his first photographs in 1853, and in 1854 opened a photographic studio at 113 rue St Lazare.

Nadar photographed a wide range of personalities: politicians, stage actors, writers, painters, and musicians.

Portrait photography was going through a period of native industrialization, and Nadar refused to use the traditional sumptuous decors; he preferred natural daylight and despised what he considered to be unnecessary accessories.

Nadar pioneered the use of artificial lighting in photography, working in the catacombs of Paris.

Nadar was thus the first person to photograph from the air with his balloons, as well as the first to photograph underground, in the Catacombs of Paris.

On his visit to Brussels with Le Geant, on 26 September 1864, Nadar erected mobile barriers to keep the crowd at a safe distance.

Le Geant was badly damaged at the end of its second flight, but Nadar rebuilt the gondola and the envelope, and continued his flights.

Nadar stayed a passionate aeronaut until he and Ernestine were injured in an accident in Le Geant.

Nadar was the inspiration for the character of Michael Ardan in Verne's From the Earth to the Moon.

In 1862, Verne and Nadar established a Societe pour la recherche de la navigation aerienne, which later became La Societe d'encouragement de la locomotion aerienne au moyen du plus lourd que l'air.

Nadar is credited with having published the first photo-interview.

Nadar was recognized for breaking the conventions of photographic portrait, choosing to capture the subjects as active participants.

Nadar moved to Marseille, where he established another photography studio in 1897.

Towards the end of his life, Nadar published Quand j'etais photographe, which was translated into English and published by MIT Press in 2015.