The camera, as printmakers saw it
Photography
The camera arrives, and the printmakers draw it. Yoshikazu’s French photographer bent under a green cloth at his tripod, his wife standing behind him, and foreigners at work with a camera in 1860. Daumier’s Nadar leaning out of a balloon to photograph Paris, every rooftop below shouting “Photographie”, and a proud bourgeois posing with a spade while the photographer hides under the cloth. Toulouse-Lautrec’s poster for the photographer Sescau, two cigarette cards from the 1880s, and a puppet photographer from Vienna.
As a puzzle
Prints build differently from paintings. The colour comes in flat areas with crisp edges, so the Yoshikazu prints and Toulouse-Lautrec’s poster sort quickly by colour, and the photographer’s dark cloth is always a clear start. Daumier’s two are black ink on cream paper and lean on line, not colour. The cigarette cards were only a few centimetres tall, so keep their counts low.
A good size here: 36–150 pieces.
Styles here: Art NouveauUkiyo-eRealism
Painters here: Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
8 pictures, pick one to build
Foreigners Employing a Camera Utagawa Yoshikazu, 11th month, 1860 
The Photographer Sescau (Le Photographe Sescau) Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, 1894 
Nadar Élevant la Photographie à la Hauteur de l'Art Honoré Daumier, May 25, 1862 
French Photographer Utagawa Yoshikazu, 1861 
Photographer, from the Occupations for Women series (N166) for Old Judge and Dogs Head Cigarettes Issued by Goodwin & Company, 1887 
Posing as an official of the local agricultural fair, from 'The Good Bourgeois,' published in Le Charivari, January 30, 1865 Honoré Daumier, January 30, 1865 
Camera, from the Novelties series (N228, Type 3) issued by Kinney Bros. Issued by Kinney Brothers Tobacco Company, 1889 
Kasperltheater Hans Kalmsteiner, 1907