Hugues Krafft
He was among the first to use instantaneous photography in Japan (he used a Zeiss camera with gelatine-silver bromide plates, a process which became widely available in 1880), which allowed him to take vivid pictures in an open environment, in contrast to the many staged studio photographs made by his predecessors.
His father was a German who immigrated to France in 1836, working first as a traveler for and then as a partner to Louis Roederer, a Champagne wine merchant.
A genealogical research of the family origins was done by Hugues Krafft himself in 1903, the resulting document of which is now kept in the Musée-Hôtel Le Vergeur.
Upon returning from his world tour, he gave several conferences on his stay in various countries at the Société de Géographie, where he also exhibited photos from his travels.
His book contains the letters he sent to his family, mainly his sister Félicie, during his 18-months journey to English India, Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Cochinchina (Vietnam), Java, China, Japan, and America.
In addition to this travelogue, his travel diary has also been found in the Musée-Hôtel Le Vergeur, which covers the world tour from the start until May 1882, before arriving in Japan.
In a short preface, Krafft indicates the purpose of publishing his travelogue:“Certainly, there are not yet enough French people who, taking advantage of their wealth and independence, or who, encouraged by their too frequently fearful families, decide to travel the world.
Are we not counting too easily those who, free of apprehensions that are for the most part ill-founded, go to seek in our own colonies, in these distant centers where the English language now reigns unchallenged, the activity and prosperity that so many foreigners know how to find there?
If the story of our journey could, in its small way, contribute to bringing out of our old Europe a too hesitant youth, and stimulate the interest that, nowadays, everyone should devote to questions that have become universal, I would have achieved my goal.
In that case, I shall be glad to have withdrawn these simple "Souvenirs de notre Tour du Monde" from the shadows for which I had originally intended them.”[1]Krafft is a photography enthusiast who used “a Zeiss camera with glass plates covered with an impressionable layer of gelatin-silver bromide, a technique widespread since 1880.”[2] The camera, its plates, and its accessories were so heavy that they required an additional rickshaw just for them.
