Kati Horna

Désiré Charnay

Born near Lyons, France in 1828, the traveler and amateur archeologist Désiré Charnay came to America at an early age – he was teaching French in New Orleans at the age of 17. Inspired by John Lloyd Stephen’s accounts, he made his first trip to Mexico in 1857 where he was inspired by the exotic scenery. Initially Charnay focussed on photography, of which he was a pioneer, documenting the ubiquitous ruins that littered the ancient sites of Mexico.

http://www.amphilsoc.org/library/mole/a/abbot.xml

 

Jean-Baptiste Gustave Le Gray

Gustave Le Gray (1820–1884) is known as the most important French photographer of the nineteenth century because of his technical innovations in the still new medium of photography, his role as the teacher of other noted photographers, and the extraordinary imagination he brought to picture making.

 

 

Maxime Du Camp

 

Maxime Du Camp

France, 1882-1894

Du Camp learned calotyping from Gustave Le Gray and in 1849 persuaded the French Ministry of Education to send him on a photographic tour of archeological sites, accompanied by the novelist Gustave Flaubert. Du Camp focused on photographing the pyramids, the sphinx and other Egyptian monuments. On their twenty-one-month tour, Du Camp made 220 calotypes, 125 of which were printed by Louis-Desire Blanquart-Evrard and published as Egypte, Nubie, Palestine et Syrie, the first book about the Middle East illustrated with actual photographs. After his return, Du Camp gave up photography and devoted his time to writing.

 

Pyramid calotype

Smith, John Shaw Irish (1811-1873)
TITLE ON OBJECT: Two small pyramids, Pyramid of Ekphrenes in distance.
Feb. 1852
calotype negative
17.0 x 22.0 cm. (irreg.)

 

G. Zangaki

Little is known about the two C. and G. Zangaki brothers even though large amounts of their photographs are found in nineteenth century travel albums of the Middle and Near East.