Contretype - Portrait de Gioacchino Rossini (1792-1868), compositeur français.

Adrien Alban Tournachon, also known as Nadar, In 1854, Nadar opened a photographic studio in Paris, specialising in portraits. He quickly gained a reputation as one of the best portrait photographers in the city. He photographed many famous people of his time, including Victor Hugo, Charles Baudelaire and Sarah Bernhardt. Nadar was also interested in aerial photography and was one of the first photographers to use balloons to take pictures from above. In 1863, he was the first person to take aerial photographs of Paris from a balloon. Nadar was a pioneer in the field of photography and made significant contributions to the development of the medium. He was one of the first photographers to use artificial lighting in his studio portraits and also experimented with different printing techniques. In addition to his work as a photographer, Nadar was also an author and wrote several books on photography and ballooning. He died in Paris on 21 March 1903 at the age of 77. Today, his photographs are considered some of the most important examples of early photography.