The First English Professional Photographers
The first professional
photographic laboratory had opened in London, beside the Royal
Polytechnic Institution, on March 23, 1841, by Richard Beard
(1801-1885).
His colleague and rival were Antoine Claudet (1797-1885), borne
in Lyon,France, and moved in London in the 1829. He began take an
interest in photo in 1839.
Beard, for much time, held exclusive brevets in the United
Kingdom and gave a strong impulse to the commercialization of the
photo, opening other laboratories in London, Liverpool,
Birmingham, Southampton, Brighton, Manchester, Leeds, Plymouth
and Norwich soon. But he not reaped the fruits of his commercial
enterprise for the high costs that he supported in legal causes
for defend his brevets.
Claudet became soon famous. He, in the course of his activity,
realized even some stereo-daguerreotypes with three-dimensional
effect and he invented, in the 1842, the red light of safety for
dark room. He, since the 1845, cooperated with a French
miniaturist in order to the realization of colored
daguerreotypes. On 1835 the queen Victory appointed him official
photographer of court.
This page photos: