Nadar’s highs and lows

Although Eduardo Cadava’s introduction to this first-ever complete English translation of Quand j’étais photographe positions Nadar’s photography as a form of mourning, the subject himself refuses to take this line. With good-natured impetuosity, boundless curiosity, self-deprecating wit, and often foolhardy courage, the unconventional memoirs of Nadar (Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, 1820–1910) are more impressionistic than documentary, more bemused than abject.

Aside from his portraits of French literary and artistic celebrities, Félix Nadar (born Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, 1820–1910) is best known for his aerial photography and his images of the catacombs and sewers of Paris. Although Nadar often looks back to the eighteenth century...